Juice WRLD has responded to Sting‘s potential lawsuit over sampling his 1993 track ‘Shape Of My Heart’.
The 19-year-old Chicago emo rapper has enjoyed a massive hit with his track ‘Lucid Dreams’, which reworks Sting’s original guitar riff.
‘Lucid Dreams’ producer Nick Mira posted a flurry of now-deleted tweets on Saturday (November 17) that claimed Sting was receiving 85% of royalties from the trap-infused hip-hop track.
“Fuck @OfficialSting and his WHOLE team,” he wrote. “After taking 85% of Lucid Dreams (for interpolating Shape of My Heart, NOT EVEN sampling) he threatened to take us to court for trying to get any %.”
Juice WRLD opted for a more magnanimous approach, tweeting: “Lost millions made millions…the song impacted to many ppl in a good way for me to be upset over it..there’s always more money to be made and I will make it so.”
Lost millions made millions…the song impacted to many ppl in a good way for me to be upset over it..there’s always more money to be made and I will make it so ❤️❤️
— . (@JuiceWorlddd) November 18, 2018
Speaking to Billboard in October, Sting described the song as “beautiful interpretation that is faithful to the original song’s form.” He also joked that royalties from ‘Lucid Dream’ will “put my grandkids through college”.
The song marks the second time that Sting – now credited as a songwriter on the track – has topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart. He first reached no. 1 as a writer of Puff Daddy and Faith Evans’ 1997 song ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ that reworked his iconic 1982 hit ‘Every Breath You Take’.
Juice WRLD responded to Sting’s compliments, telling TMZ that the songwriter is “The GOAT. Greatest of all time.”
Compare and contrast the two songs below.
Speaking to NME, Juice WRLD recently expanded on his eclectic influences. “I had phases of listening to rap and trap, and then I had phases where I’d listen to post-hardcore, rap, grunge, metal… all that,” he said. “I had different time periods of listening to different music. And now it all clashes together.”