Revived electro-god Aphex Twin is accusing Kanye West of illegally sampling one of his songs for his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album. Mr. Kardashian and his reps reportedly “tried to get away with not paying” for the track “Avril 14th,” a track off 2001’s Drukgs with a piano piece that serves as central sound in West’s song “Blame Game”.
When discussing the hotly anticipated new album Syro, his first album in 13 years, with Pitchfork, Aphex was clearly agitated by the Kanye slight, explaining his crew’s crude way of handling the sample.
“Is it a sample? I actually don’t know what it ended up being in the end, I’m so slack,” Aphex told the site. “I know that he tried to f**king rip me off and claim that he’d written it, and they tried to get away with not paying.”
“I was really helpful,” he continued. “And when they first sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh, I can re-do that for you, if you like,’ because they’d sampled it really badly and time-stretched it and there was loads of artefacts. I was like, ‘I’ll just replay it for you at that speed if you want.’ And they totally didn’t even say ‘hello’ or ‘thanks’ they just replied with, ‘It’s not yours, it’s ours, and we’re not even asking you any more.'”
The MBDTF liner notes explain that “Blame Game” does contain “elements of Avril 14 by Richard James”. Crave has reached out to Kanye’s team, but have yet to hear a response to requests for clarification.
Compare the two tracks below and make your own judgement:
