Florida recording artist T-Pain said in a recent interview that he learned the perils of the publishing game after two artists came after him for using familiar phrases from their songs.
The singer/songwriter, born Faheem Rashad Najm, appeared with NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe on his “Club Shay Shay” podcast and discussed learning a hard lesson at the start of his recording career. The publishing game can protect you as an artist, but it can also make you pay if you don’t appropriately credit a song or lyrics from that recording.
In one of his most popular songs, T-Pain thought he was paying homage by repeating lines from other songs and artists he respected. However, not knowing the business the way he needed to at the time, he literally had to pay for mistakes he thought were paying respect.
Giving props to Lil Scrappy and Lil Jon cost him some money when he used their lyrics in his songs.
“When I did I’ma ‘Buy U A Drank,’ then I’ma take you home with me. ‘I got money in the bank.’ As soon as I said ‘Money in the Bank,’ that’s when Lil Scrappy came in and was like, ‘Okay. Well, he said a line from my song’. Lil Scrappy had the song at the time, ‘I got money in the bank. Shawty what ya thank.”
“So, at the beginning of the song, when I say, ‘Snap your fingers, do your step. You can do it all by yourself.’ Then Lil Jon came in, ‘Well, since this song is doing well, don’t mind if I do.”
“I thought I was paying homage and then the people that could take advantage of it, they took advantage of it. But the thing was they took advantage of the publishing and the master of it,” he told Sharpe.
Although he had to pay for using the lyrics, he didn’t think the artist initiated the actions; it may have been the publishing entities that pursued him. But, to him, it didn’t matter as he was making a lot of money performing the song. He told Sharpe he was making $100,000 a show.
Check out the clip below:
Paying Homage To 2 Artists Costed T-Pain Some Publishing Money
