International News
CD sales hit all-time low
Despite every major record label’s best efforts to keep the compact disc holy,... [more]
Hugely respected Detroit producer Theo Parrish railed against ‘the bullshit illusion that dance music has no race, no gender, that it’s about the celebration of some sort of utopian concept’, this week in a no holds barred tirade against ‘white artists with labels’ stealing ideas from black producers.
“(Underground dance music) is one of the few places a thief will try to copy your music, then send it to you calling it a tribute in hopes of you endorsing it,” he told Detroit portal Moodmat.com. “They’ll find the sources of your samples if you use them, and use them verbatim, then try to cash in on your previous successes… The thieves, usually white, are typically the culprits of this phenomena,” he added.
His views reflected those of Detroit pioneer Derrick May who, chatting to Skrufff several years ago, admitted feeling highly ambiguous about producers making cover versions of his signature electronic anthem Strings Of Life. “They’re profiteers at the end of the day, whether they’re good people or bad people, fans, people saying this song has changed my life, whatever; they’re all profiteers. It’s about business,” Derrick complained.
“When a great athlete comes along everybody wants him for the team, not just so he or she can help them win but also because they can bring in fans. Doing a cover is business, it’s a money-making venture and when people see an open window they want to jump in,” he went on to explain. “The song (Strings Of Life) has never disappeared completely, young kids have discovered it, they don’t know the original version, so people see an opportunity to obliterate the original with these new versions, in the process of making some money. It’s going to happen,” he surmised.
mashedman says...
i can only imagine the type of shit someone like say Ritchie Hawtin claimed that black producers steal his ideas.
duchess1234 says...
To flip this Oreo flavoured argument around, here's WALE feat D.A.N.C.E. This is from his latest album that he released early this year. We also saw Kid Cudi using LCD Soundsystem as a background track to his own song. It IS a tribute in the dance music realm because DJing is all about introducing new music or past music "tweaked" to maintain the appreciation of the love of music and to refresh the concept of music and what is defined as music while keeping it contemporary to its current audience. To completely thwart Theo's case, how many "rapstars" of the "black" colour have used "white" predecessors' music in their songs at the moment, thrown it into mainstream light and are cashing in WAY more than these "white" dance music producers are while continually pronouncing the song as their song. My favourite example for this can be seen with P. Diddles use of Led Zeppelin for the soundtrack song for the woeful movie Godzilla. Shocking. I died a little the day I heard that pathetic excuse of a song. Item 2 - ye olde Diddy also used of The Police's "I'll be watching you" over a tribute song to Notorious BIG. The worst part in my opinion is that there are so many other artists that are "creating" songs that are being played currently on mainstream radio whose intrumental came from another song that was created decades before now. So now due to this, we have a complete generation of music lovers that are not aware of the "roots" of that song and that the real "genius" made and played that song when their parents used to "jive and groove". At least in Dance music the appreciation of the "roots" of a song are 9 times out of 10 listed in the title of the song FIRST then their remix soon afterwards. Where do you see that in mainstream music? I haven't seen it yet. Prove me wrong please.
Impulsory says...
*cough* kanye west?
palaeo-tech says...
Wow. It's incredibly disappointing to hear someone so revered in dance music making a race issue out of the sampling of his music and to label it as 'thievery'. Frankly if it matters that much to him he should be taking litigious action, not just carping on about it. The argument he makes may as well have come from a spoilt ten year old. That's how assuming and ignorant it comes across. Next time you make a comment like that in a public forum Mr. Parrish, use a VERY good example to back it up or else don't bother. Besides - if the success of some 'white' labels galls you so much then why not appropriate their business models and make more cash yourself? . . . . or would that then be stealing from the 'white' man?
Spekman says...
haha he says “They’ll find the sources of your samples if you use them"... so then really hasn't HE then stolen them from somewhere??? what a gronk... and i see no issue with doing covers of classics, these are awesome songs that because of their age cant fit in with today's style of music and genres, so someone revamps them to fit in with today's crowd, and the song lives on... keeping the name of the person who did the original in the limelight... what a terrible crime...
Violentine says...
load of crap. theo's just another dude who resents the fact that he isn't as big as daft punk. massive chip on shoulder. racist. fuckwit. can write a banging tune, though.
DamoK says...
Taken out of context. Read the question he was responding to before mouthing off - http://www.moodmat.com/?p=977
Dahlin says...
Dude, read the full article.... he delivers such a strong point of view. The question is to the point though, although his choice of examples only demonstrates and highlights his one sided view. Everyone draws a little something from everyone, that is life...nothing is original now!!! It's chopped, changed and re-arranged. Theo as a pioneer has seen this all before him I guess, and as a generation Y's (majority) we are just used to the fact that most things are sampled. Maybe the answer is pay respect and credit the pioneers and for the pioneers pay respects to the people that breath new life into the classics.