motherfunka said:

This is where I get lost! Prince did not want Tom Jones to do Kiss, or Ginuwine to do When Doves Cry. I'm thinking that Warner Brothers must have given the okay since they own the masters??? Although I read interviews where Prince said rappers were coming left and right wanting to use his music, and he said they could not. I don't get it.

Let me break it down for you.

You don't have to get an artists permission to cover their song. Any artist can cover any song they want. This is because you are not changing the legal rights to the song or who wrote it, in any way whatsoever.

However, you DO have to obtain permission from an artist to sample their work. This is because you are creating an original new piece of work that uses a portion of another persons copyright work, and entering into a new financial arrangement that they must agree to. For example, if you used a short sample of music in your song, you might give the original artist 10 or 15% of the writing credits for that song. If you used an 8-bar loop and incorporated part of their melodies into your song, you might give the original artist 40% or 50% writing credit. Of course, the artist must agree to what you are offering them and many artists will also require a lump sum fee of their choice for allowing you to sample their work.

Prince operates on both of these principles regarding sampling, but also dependant on whether he likes your song, or not.

For example - Tupac was allowed to sample Prince on many occasions (Heartz Of Men samples Darling Nikki, Whatz Ya Phone # samples 777-9311 and uses the chorus melody, Pac's Life samples Pop Life, Thugz Get Lonely Too sampled IIWYG, and there's more....Tupac even gave Prince a credit purely for using the lyric "Everybody's looking for the ladder" in his 'I Get Around' which he didn't legally have to do, so that was a nice thing for 'Pac to do.)

However, Ja Rule wanted to release a track where he had sampled Pop Life, but Prince said no.

But going back to your original comment, no WB did not have to give the OK for Tom Jones or Ginuwine to cover those songs. No clearance is required for covers.

[Edited 9/29/10 12:30pm]

Hasn't the bitch fallen far enough out of the tree already? He's played around in the gutter already and hopefully he'll get enough of chasing after rough trade dick and go after some dick of men that's actually worth a damn.

Spinlight said:

Prince has no idea how to involve himself with people who specialize in hip hop music who are on the same or similar level as him. That's why you never see him perform with The Roots or D'angelo or John Legend or Kanye West (regardless of anyone's opinions on Kanye), etc. He couldn't hang with people like that because their creativity is on the same level as Prince's when he was their age and it probably scares him. So he invites either subpar/shitty rappers (Scrap D, that white kid on Daisy Chain) or rappers who are past their prime and still do the same dated routine. The only successful rap collaboration he has done, imo, was Undisputed with Chuck D.

Even "Eve" sounds out of place in the songs he used her on.

Just state the obvious, Prince isn't a "hip-hopper". That's not necessarily a bad thing.