Re: Me'shell performance

Elson Trinidad (elson@westworld.com)
Sun, 12 Jul 1998 12:51:06 -0700


At 02:41 PM 7/12/98 -0400, Tunde wrote:

there was a great little bit where she made a dig
>> at brian mcknight (w/o mentioning his name--she's got class, you know)
about
>> that hit he had that totally bit her melody for "outside your door". she
>> was
>> going on about how someone can "borrow" something of yours and enjoy it
for

>I wondered abouit how she felt about that sample Her song was of course
>much more beautiful. Was she complaining like they didnt pay her for the
>sample, or did she lend it to him and is disapponted in how big the song
>is?

It wasn't a sample (to clarify, a "sample" is a snippet of the actual
recording of the original tune).
It was a direct rip-off of the piano line (it was re-played). Of course
it's distressing if someone took something that you did and made something
bigger off of it. It's a different story entirely if someone took something
from an obviously more well-known tune (which is why Sting, and all of Mr.
Puff Daddy's victims, aren't too harsh on his little commericals).

I have't heard "Plantation Lullabies" in a long-ass time, so I listened to
track 10 ("Outside Your Door") and lo and behold, there it was.

Reading the album's liner notes carefully, the song was indeed written by
MeShell herself (actually a blanket credit for "all songs").

I did research on the McKnight tune, and the only credits were for "Brian
McKnight and Michael Brandon Barnes." Does anyone here who has the McKnight
album know if any credit was given to Me'shell?

Unless that piano line is one of those things that was originally written
by someone else and gets constantly used by people in the r&b/hip-hop
universe (BTW, where did that riff that was used by both Blackstreet
("Don't Leave Me Girl") and Tupac ("I Ain't Mad At Ya") (and countless
other people) come from originally?)

Elson


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