will.i.am Admits He Stole a Song, But He’ll Make It Better!

I’m not sure what’s more annoying about will.i.am: his face, his voice, the fact that he calls everything “dope”, his inflated ego, those stupid periods in his name, his friendship with Justin Bieber, the fact that he totally steals songs… Well, let’s concentrate on the latter, for now.

Right, so the track ‘Let’s Go’ featuring Chris Brown (double ugh) from Will’s new album #willpower (dumb) is a rip off of Arty and Rat Zo’s ‘Rebound’. Billy didn’t clear the rights before using the beat, nor did he acknowledge that he’d taken it… until he was called out, of course.

Arty and Zo seem like nice bros, so here’s what each of them said on Twitter and Facebook, respectively:

“I really and truly appreciate all the support you are giving me and Arty in response to will.i.am’s copyright infringement. However, this doesn’t excuse the horrific abuse you’re sending the way of will.i.am and Chris Brown, and it especially doesn’t excuse being racist.”

Anyhoo, William went on KIIS-FM to discuss this whole thing yesterday (thanks to DS for the transcript) and admitted that he definitely took the song but promising that he’s “fix it” – probably by trying to pay Arty and Zo off:

“So this song by Chris Brown ‘Let’s Go’. Arty is a dope producer so I wrote this song to rebound this last year.

“I got in touch with Arty and showed it to him, did a different version to it ’cause I asked him [to] make it newer ’cause I don’t just wanna take your song and rap over it. But we did that, we collaborated.

“But in a year’s time, time’s gone by [and] we preferred writing over and using the [original] rebound. Something happened and the clearance… hopefully we resolved the issue.

“I’m a fan of Arty; I think he’s great and the world needs to know about how talented those guys are. It’s sad that it’s turned into a fiasco but hopefully it’s resolved because I’m a fan of those guys to the point where I wrote to their instrumental.”

Asked if he had originally collaborated with Arty on the song, he replied: “No, I heard his ‘Rebound’ and then wrote a song to it and then contacted them last year. A year has passed and we’re fixing it now.”

“Do you like James Brown? Love James Brown. He changed Hip-Hop. People sample. You heard the song ‘American Boy’ by Estelle? That original, I did the original instrumental on my song on my album Songs by Girls.”

Stop trying to justify it, man. You stole the beat and thought they weren’t popular enough for you to ever get caught, but you did. Now pay up and shut up.