An underground electronic music producer has recently made allegations against Kanye West, accusing him of stealing his music to sample without any permission or official clearance.
The Italian DJ and producer TSVI released a tech house-style track in 2016 entitled ‘12345678’ that features sound effects of a gym class counting from one to eight. However, an almost identical sound can be heard in Kanye’s 2021 track ‘Believe What I Say’ from Donda.
Taking to social media to express his outrage, the beatmaker wrote, “This is crazy, I just found out Kanye West sampled one of my tracks in Donda wtfff.” He added, “Why am I finding out about this only now????? I need to get paid asap!”
TSVI accused West of sampling the numbers “One” and “Six” from the original recordings the producer created. However, the “Work It” phrase was sampled by the DJ from another source.
The Italian EDM producer labelled the situation “surreal” but didn’t hesitate to unleash his fury on West, writing, “Fuck Kanye though. I’ve seen stories of him stealing samples from other producers in the underground music scene, and it sucks.”
Ranting about the double standards of music production, TSVI continued, “We producers are at the bottom of the chain; he’s at the top with billions in his bank account, with a team of producers who have complete freedom to sample whatever they want. He has an infinite sample pack at his disposal, which he can use as he pleases without any repercussions!”
The beatmaker (real name Guglielmo Barzacchini) came to the conclusion that he will undoubtedly never see any money from Donda, but admitted that he at least wants to be included on the credits for his contribution, writing, “Anyway, I’ll probably never see any money from this, but I appreciate all of your support and kind messages. The minimum that I’d like to gain from this situation is at least a credit on the song.”
You can hear the two tracks in the videos below to hear the alleged sample theft by Kanye West.
