The last occurrence in what should be called #REBOUNDgate was will.i.am's claim that a) the lawyers were taking too slow to work out the legal paperwork for his use (theft?) of Arty & Mat Zo's "Rebound," and b) that he didn't even know that Mat Zo also produced "Rebound." We'd been wondering why neither Arty, Mat Zo, or Anjunabeats were not speaking, and it looks like that last video might have been the straw that broke the camel's back, as the following statement hit the Anjunabeats Facebook this morning:
Anjunabeats is the record label behind Arty and Mat Zo and owns the master recording rights to their collaboration "Rebound." Mat Zo and Arty have been important members of the Anjunabeats family for a number of years and "Rebound" was one of the label's most popular releases in 2011.
As has been widely reported, a large section of "Rebound" was sampled on Will.i.am's track "Let's Go featuring Chris Brown" and this took place without the permission of Anjunabeats or Arty & Mat Zo.
Although Arty (but not Mat Zo) was credited in the sleeve notes, this is not the same as obtaining permission. To present someone else's work as your own, you need to seek permission, agree terms and file paperwork, which has not happened in this case.
We've remained silent on this issue until now but as a record label it is our obligation to protect our artists' interests and we felt it was necessary to respond to some of the inaccuracies that have been reported following Will.i.am's recent comments to Associated Press.
The ball is in will.i.am's court, but it sounds like whatever legal work is being done isn't satisfactory to either site. DAD will keep you posted.
