Earlier today musician Geoff Barrow of the English bands Portishead and Beak> (as well as accomplished composer for various film and TV productions) pointed out on Twitter an authorized sampling by American rapper Lil Pump on his latest track, “Racks on Racks.” Barrow condemned Lil Pump’s unauthorized sampling of his and Ben Salisbury’s Annihilation score in his track, which was released just yesterday. More than the unauthorized sample it seems, Barrow’s biggest issue was with the lyrical contents of Pump’s newest single (and the video’s imagery, which goes hand-in-hand with the song).
Barrow’s disapproval of the matter is also about how the score was utilized within a track that he describes as “deeply fucking sexist”. According to the tweet, both Barrow and Salisbury never allowed their score to be sampled in such a manner.
In a series of following tweets, Barrow makes his support for women’s rights clear as he condemns Lil Pump for being a “misogynist” and states that if there were royalties to be had, he would force the rapper to direct all of the money to women refuge charities. He added in a response to his initial tweet, “How can this shit exist in the same world as the #metoo movement and it doesn’t get called out? Utter bullshit.” He has also tweeted directly at Lil’ Pump.
(UPDATE (2/1) – 7:41 PM PST): Pitchfork reports that Barrow confirmed the song that was sampled by Lil Pump without authorization is from “The Alien.” In a statement given to Pitchfork, Barrow confirmed that his big issue is not royalties, but instead his music being used on a song that so clearly degrades young women:
“We don’t expect any royalties and copyright infringement is not our issue. We want people to know that in no way have we granted the use of our music to be used on a track that is So terribly degrading to young woman. As fathers & firm supporters of the Me too movement We are amazed how tracks like this are not called out by the media for this reason. I know people will try and Call us out as old fuckers and the music ain’t for us and they would be right but misogamy is still Bullshit what ever age you are.”
Salisbury has also released a tweet addressing the matter.
The sample can be heard in the bridge of the song “Racks on Racks.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time that the Barrow has dealt with such a case. In 2014, Pitchfork released a story detailing a similar battle he had with Abel Tesfaye of The Weeknd. Tesfaye sampled Portishead’s “Machine Gun” in his song “Belong to the World,” even after Barrow had denied him permission.
Listen to both Lil Pump’s “Racks on Racks” and a sampling of the Annihilation score below.
“Racks on Racks”
“The Alien”
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