Beyoncé has turned tossing the salad after it's been made and claiming credit for making it into an art form. It's up there with her inability to keep her legs closed and make it through a routine without whipping her hair like she's possessed by the holy ghost, and then thrusting her vagina into the nearest camera when she's on stage.
With the Amazonian robot empress from the kingdom of lost wigs having a new album out, it of course it features some scammed credits. Trailing behind a bitch like Daniel Julez's pull away train on a rope. A Beyoncé album doesn't get mastered without a songwriting scam or two...or 4.
Beyoncé's credibility as a songwriter was thrown into question way back with Destiny's Child's Survivor. An album which had 17 of its 18 songs citing Beyoncé as a songwriter, and the full 18 listing Beyoncé as a producer or a co-producer. It's not impossible for a female artist to write and co-produce all of her own material. There are many who do it and do it brilliantly. Tori Amos, Hikaru Utada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Björk, Lady Gaga and Kumi Koda to name a few. But when stories begin to surface more than once that perhaps the album liner notes are not an accurate representation of the input that an artist had, then you do have to wonder. And the question as to whether Beyoncé writes and produces all of which she and her album liners say she has, has continued to buzz around Beyoncé like a bumble bee trying to make home in a her weave.
The order of which a songwriters name appears within the listed credits of a song has long been a debate. Such seemingly small trivial matters are one of the things which had John and Paul fall out during their time in The Beatles. It's somewhat of "a thing" that the list of songwriters on a song are ordered from who contributed the most to the least. However, there's nothing to prove this; and there are more arguments against this than there are those for it. Producers are also often credited as the writer of a song, even when they've contributed nothing lyrically to the song at all. Baring this in mind, it is rather telling that in many of 4's song credits, Beyoncé's is listed first as a songwriter and also as a producer on songs which we know existed long before she had gotten them. Beyoncé obviously seems to think that singing on a song means that you produced it. And being the person singing the song, that your name should be listed first as the songwriter of it. It doesn't work like this. Unless of course you have Beyoncé's money and power. After all... Money talks so that the album credits do. And if Beyoncé turns around to you and says "I like your song. But I won't record it unless I can be credited as a songwriter" to claim part of the royalties, are you really going to turn her down, knowing how big she'll make your record?
Beyoncé has continued to make out that she writes every one of her songs. Openly declaring that she writes songs from scratch, comes up with everything and pours her heart and bottles of lacefront glue into these songs. She even has Grammy's (which she should be giving back) to back this up. Grammy's people!! We're not buying it though. So let's run through B's latest release and poke at all of the songs which stink of a scam.
1 + 1 = She a lying bitch
Terius "The Dream" Nash had written a song called "Nothing but love" and had recorded it himself a good while back. The song then surfaces as "1 + 1" under the wig of Beyoncé. A song which probably had Prince throw up in his own mouth at a bitch completely jacking his style. Naturally, Beyoncé manages to snag a song writing credit and first billing as the song's producer. After all, screaming ♪ Make love to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee ♪ non-stop towards the end of the song is a songwriting contribution purely because it wasn't a feature of the original recording.
Best thing I never had was a songwriting credit until I scammed my way into one
Founding member of the songwriting collective The Clutch, Patrick "J. Que" Smith had mentioned that "Best thing I never had" was already written before Beyoncé or Babyface had come into the picture. And that once they had heard the song, they both had "a couple of things [they] wanted to tweak". This isn't concrete confirmation Beyoncé had no writing input into this song. But it at least brings to light that Beyoncé's so called tweaking could be how she warrants being listed as a songwriter alongside those who actually wrote portions of a song.
Legally, if an artist contributes so much as a word to a song, they're able to be listed as a songwriter and share the copyrights of it. But ethically, is this right?
Run the world (Girls who lie)
Beyoncé's female depowerment anthem "Run the world (Girls)" doesn't so much sample Major Lazer's "Pon de floor" as it does pretty much use the entire instrumental from it. There are a couple of notable tweaks to the music here and there, but it is pretty much the instrumental of the Major Lazer and Vybz Kartel assisted club banger.
The song writing credits cite the original songwriters of "Pon de floor", which it damn well should. No shady dealings here. But the shadiness starts when you look at the production credits. "Pon de floor" was produced by Major Lazer which is the collective of Dave "Switch" Taylor and Wesley "Diplo" Pentz. Yet, only Switch is listed as a producer for the song. Surely Diplo should have been credited too, or did we miss something? The Dream, Shea Taylor and Beyoncé are all listed within the capacities of being producers. Smells like everybody wanted to get all up in the kitchen for the sake of snagging some credits. There is no way to disprove this of course. But it smells fishy. Rather fitting that Beyoncé has her legs spread wide open on the page of the inlay which lists the credits for this song.
I was here. You wasn't. So you ain't getting credited for shit.
The only song on 4 on which Beyoncé did not manage to scam a songwriting credit for was "I was here". And this is no doubt because the song was written by the songwriting force of one that is Diane Warren. There was no way in hell that Beyoncé was going to be able to scam a songwriting credit from this woman. She probably tried her luck. But Diane Warren is bullet proof. If she wrote a song, she wrote it. And no amount of trying to change a word here or there, or mailing her unsolicited cheques is going to get your name alongside hers. Unless you sat your arse down in a studio and put pen to paper, fingers to laptop keys with her - your name is not appearing alongside Diane Warren's. PERIOD!
Beyoncé not being listed as a writer on Diane Warren's song is rather telling. As it may speak volumes for the fact that Diane Warren doesn't need Beyoncé's named tied to her songs to be any bigger or any more in-demand than she already is. In fact, in this case it's more than likely the opposite. You know you've hit a substantial level in your career when you're singing a song which has been written for you by Diane Warren.
All of the other songwriters and producers on 4 may have felt that they needed to relinquish control over their rights on a song to Beyoncé, because they know how big it will be for their careers to say they got on an album of hers. They know that Beyoncé will make their work a hit, which will get their name known and generate more work for them. Letting the Amazonian empress scam credit for their work is a small price they pay. Heather Bright brought this to light in her defense of Britney Spears, after the lethargic pop star came under fire for writing absolutely nothing on her 8th studio album Femme fatale.
Beyoncé, we see you. We're onto your schemes. You'd better super glue that wig the f**k down to that scalp.
Lay up under my lies
There's this dude who writes songs. You may have heard of him. His name is Sean Garrett. Just to give you some background info on this guy: He is the man behind the hits such as Beyoncé's "Check on it", Destiny's Child's "Lose my breath" and also the (s)hits Chris Brown's "Wall to wall", Nicole Scherzinger's "Whatever you like" and other songs such as Britney's "Toy soldier" and that song for Blackout we STILL be hoping will leak in finalized form: "Kiss you all over". He's also that Donkey Kong looking man in Nicki Minaj's "Massive attack" video. Oh yeah. He wrote that too. That's him singing on the chorus.
Sean Garrett had released an album 3 years ago, which only myself and about 7 other people know exists. And the song "Lay up under me" featured on it. Sean Garrett wrote the song with Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen (collectively known to all of us as Stargate) who also produced the song. Now, we could give Beyoncé the benefit of the doubt and claim her version of "Lay up under me" is a different song. Only, it isn't. The song features a different second verse, but I'll leave it up to you to deduce whether Beyoncé wrote it herself or not and if she deserved to have her name listed first in the credits like she wrote this song from top to bottom.
Listen: Lay up under me (Beyoncé's version)
© 2011 Columbia records, Sony BMG music entertainment
Listen: Lay up under me (Sean Garrett's version)
© 2008 Bet I penned it music / Interscope records, Universal music group
Despite Sean Garrett being involved with Destiny's Child's last studio album, having a heavy hand in Beyoncé's solo album B'Day (you can blame him for the mess that is "Ring the alarm" and the brilliance of "Green light", "Get me bodied" and "Upgrade U") and I am...Sasha Fierce (you can blame that n***a for "Diva" and "Video phone" too) Sean Garrett contributes no songs to 4 other than the one Beyoncé stole a credit for. Perhaps he got tired of bitch taking credit for his shit. Main 4 contributor Shea Taylor also managed to score himself a songwriting credit for this song too. And from the looks of the album credits, he may have been co-scamming with Beyoncé - I'll give you the Lion's share of production for my album, under the basis I am listed as a songwriter and producer on every one of the songs you work on. Not so far fetched. Not in the slightest.
Beyoncé's name has been smeared through some serious dirt because of her shady dealings concerning songwriting. I thought it may stop after her father was kicked to the curb, along with her own ability to write a song. But I guess not. I dig Beyoncé. I am a fan of her music and live performances. But I'm not a fan of her being a complete sham with the songwriting. Even artists for whom song writing is their main craft are not trying to claw their way into getting a song writing credit on their material. There are several songs on Keri Hilson's No boys allowed on which she is not listed as a song writer at all. Keri was more than happy to let fellow songwriters such as Ester Dean pen songs for her. This just goes to show the difference in regards to songwriting integrity between honest folk like Keri Hilson and Beyoncé.
Darth Daddy Mathew Knowles seems to have instilled this notion in Beyoncé that nobody will take you seriously or buy into you unless your name is credited on every song (a point he pinned Rob Fusari down with after the producer caught wind of Beyoncé taking full credit for his work on "Bootylicious"). Mathew never once seemed to have made a point of the fact that dishonesty and taking credit for somebody else's work is not only ethically wrong, but it's stealing. Nasty traits which will taint an artist if their acts of unethical practices come to light - which they have many times in Beyoncé's case. Every album Beyoncé has put out has been plagued with songwriting scandals. Yet she continues to get away with it and come out unscathed. As though nothing happened. Her reputation still very much intact. Power is clearly a wonderful thing.
I've always made a note of how Brandy rarely writes any of her songs anymore. But is her artistry and music any less amazing because of it? Hell no. Afrodisiac trumps on each and every one of Beyoncé's solo albums which she claimed to have written 98% of, and yet Brandy only wrote one song on it. Having your name tied to the writing of every song does not automatically make you a better artist. It's nice to know an artist you love and idolize can write their own songs. But it's the quality of the songs which draws you. Not whether they wrote it or not. Nobody would dare say Diana Ross, Whitney Houston or Namie Amuro are any less of an artist because they do not write every single one of their songs.
Beyoncé is not only looking like a thieving bitch, but she is discrediting the craft of those who take song writing seriously by making out she is one of them, when she is not. I'm not saying Beyoncé has never written a song in her life. There are many juvenile songs within the B and DC discography which I'm willing to believe she wrote. But when every album she releases has a slew of songwriting scandals follow it, you find it difficult to believe where Beyoncé's pen game starts and where the lies end.
It would be a nice turn if Beyoncé stopped. But when she's managed to get away with it for so long - why on the kingdom of lost wigs would she stop now?
The Beyoncé song writing scam chronicles...
With the Amazonian robot empress from the kingdom of lost wigs having a new album out, it of course it features some scammed credits. Trailing behind a bitch like Daniel Julez's pull away train on a rope. A Beyoncé album doesn't get mastered without a songwriting scam or two...or 4.
Beyoncé's credibility as a songwriter was thrown into question way back with Destiny's Child's Survivor. An album which had 17 of its 18 songs citing Beyoncé as a songwriter, and the full 18 listing Beyoncé as a producer or a co-producer. It's not impossible for a female artist to write and co-produce all of her own material. There are many who do it and do it brilliantly. Tori Amos, Hikaru Utada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Björk, Lady Gaga and Kumi Koda to name a few. But when stories begin to surface more than once that perhaps the album liner notes are not an accurate representation of the input that an artist had, then you do have to wonder. And the question as to whether Beyoncé writes and produces all of which she and her album liners say she has, has continued to buzz around Beyoncé like a bumble bee trying to make home in a her weave.
The order of which a songwriters name appears within the listed credits of a song has long been a debate. Such seemingly small trivial matters are one of the things which had John and Paul fall out during their time in The Beatles. It's somewhat of "a thing" that the list of songwriters on a song are ordered from who contributed the most to the least. However, there's nothing to prove this; and there are more arguments against this than there are those for it. Producers are also often credited as the writer of a song, even when they've contributed nothing lyrically to the song at all. Baring this in mind, it is rather telling that in many of 4's song credits, Beyoncé's is listed first as a songwriter and also as a producer on songs which we know existed long before she had gotten them. Beyoncé obviously seems to think that singing on a song means that you produced it. And being the person singing the song, that your name should be listed first as the songwriter of it. It doesn't work like this. Unless of course you have Beyoncé's money and power. After all... Money talks so that the album credits do. And if Beyoncé turns around to you and says "I like your song. But I won't record it unless I can be credited as a songwriter" to claim part of the royalties, are you really going to turn her down, knowing how big she'll make your record?
Beyoncé has continued to make out that she writes every one of her songs. Openly declaring that she writes songs from scratch, comes up with everything and pours her heart and bottles of lacefront glue into these songs. She even has Grammy's (which she should be giving back) to back this up. Grammy's people!! We're not buying it though. So let's run through B's latest release and poke at all of the songs which stink of a scam.
1 + 1 = She a lying bitch
Terius "The Dream" Nash had written a song called "Nothing but love" and had recorded it himself a good while back. The song then surfaces as "1 + 1" under the wig of Beyoncé. A song which probably had Prince throw up in his own mouth at a bitch completely jacking his style. Naturally, Beyoncé manages to snag a song writing credit and first billing as the song's producer. After all, screaming ♪ Make love to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee ♪ non-stop towards the end of the song is a songwriting contribution purely because it wasn't a feature of the original recording.
Best thing I never had was a songwriting credit until I scammed my way into one
Founding member of the songwriting collective The Clutch, Patrick "J. Que" Smith had mentioned that "Best thing I never had" was already written before Beyoncé or Babyface had come into the picture. And that once they had heard the song, they both had "a couple of things [they] wanted to tweak". This isn't concrete confirmation Beyoncé had no writing input into this song. But it at least brings to light that Beyoncé's so called tweaking could be how she warrants being listed as a songwriter alongside those who actually wrote portions of a song.
Legally, if an artist contributes so much as a word to a song, they're able to be listed as a songwriter and share the copyrights of it. But ethically, is this right?
Run the world (Girls who lie)
Beyoncé's female depowerment anthem "Run the world (Girls)" doesn't so much sample Major Lazer's "Pon de floor" as it does pretty much use the entire instrumental from it. There are a couple of notable tweaks to the music here and there, but it is pretty much the instrumental of the Major Lazer and Vybz Kartel assisted club banger.
The song writing credits cite the original songwriters of "Pon de floor", which it damn well should. No shady dealings here. But the shadiness starts when you look at the production credits. "Pon de floor" was produced by Major Lazer which is the collective of Dave "Switch" Taylor and Wesley "Diplo" Pentz. Yet, only Switch is listed as a producer for the song. Surely Diplo should have been credited too, or did we miss something? The Dream, Shea Taylor and Beyoncé are all listed within the capacities of being producers. Smells like everybody wanted to get all up in the kitchen for the sake of snagging some credits. There is no way to disprove this of course. But it smells fishy. Rather fitting that Beyoncé has her legs spread wide open on the page of the inlay which lists the credits for this song.
I was here. You wasn't. So you ain't getting credited for shit.
The only song on 4 on which Beyoncé did not manage to scam a songwriting credit for was "I was here". And this is no doubt because the song was written by the songwriting force of one that is Diane Warren. There was no way in hell that Beyoncé was going to be able to scam a songwriting credit from this woman. She probably tried her luck. But Diane Warren is bullet proof. If she wrote a song, she wrote it. And no amount of trying to change a word here or there, or mailing her unsolicited cheques is going to get your name alongside hers. Unless you sat your arse down in a studio and put pen to paper, fingers to laptop keys with her - your name is not appearing alongside Diane Warren's. PERIOD!
Beyoncé not being listed as a writer on Diane Warren's song is rather telling. As it may speak volumes for the fact that Diane Warren doesn't need Beyoncé's named tied to her songs to be any bigger or any more in-demand than she already is. In fact, in this case it's more than likely the opposite. You know you've hit a substantial level in your career when you're singing a song which has been written for you by Diane Warren.
All of the other songwriters and producers on 4 may have felt that they needed to relinquish control over their rights on a song to Beyoncé, because they know how big it will be for their careers to say they got on an album of hers. They know that Beyoncé will make their work a hit, which will get their name known and generate more work for them. Letting the Amazonian empress scam credit for their work is a small price they pay. Heather Bright brought this to light in her defense of Britney Spears, after the lethargic pop star came under fire for writing absolutely nothing on her 8th studio album Femme fatale.
Beyoncé, we see you. We're onto your schemes. You'd better super glue that wig the f**k down to that scalp.
Lay up under my lies
There's this dude who writes songs. You may have heard of him. His name is Sean Garrett. Just to give you some background info on this guy: He is the man behind the hits such as Beyoncé's "Check on it", Destiny's Child's "Lose my breath" and also the (s)hits Chris Brown's "Wall to wall", Nicole Scherzinger's "Whatever you like" and other songs such as Britney's "Toy soldier" and that song for Blackout we STILL be hoping will leak in finalized form: "Kiss you all over". He's also that Donkey Kong looking man in Nicki Minaj's "Massive attack" video. Oh yeah. He wrote that too. That's him singing on the chorus.
Sean Garrett had released an album 3 years ago, which only myself and about 7 other people know exists. And the song "Lay up under me" featured on it. Sean Garrett wrote the song with Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen (collectively known to all of us as Stargate) who also produced the song. Now, we could give Beyoncé the benefit of the doubt and claim her version of "Lay up under me" is a different song. Only, it isn't. The song features a different second verse, but I'll leave it up to you to deduce whether Beyoncé wrote it herself or not and if she deserved to have her name listed first in the credits like she wrote this song from top to bottom.
Listen: Lay up under me (Beyoncé's version)
© 2011 Columbia records, Sony BMG music entertainment
Listen: Lay up under me (Sean Garrett's version)
© 2008 Bet I penned it music / Interscope records, Universal music group
Despite Sean Garrett being involved with Destiny's Child's last studio album, having a heavy hand in Beyoncé's solo album B'Day (you can blame him for the mess that is "Ring the alarm" and the brilliance of "Green light", "Get me bodied" and "Upgrade U") and I am...Sasha Fierce (you can blame that n***a for "Diva" and "Video phone" too) Sean Garrett contributes no songs to 4 other than the one Beyoncé stole a credit for. Perhaps he got tired of bitch taking credit for his shit. Main 4 contributor Shea Taylor also managed to score himself a songwriting credit for this song too. And from the looks of the album credits, he may have been co-scamming with Beyoncé - I'll give you the Lion's share of production for my album, under the basis I am listed as a songwriter and producer on every one of the songs you work on. Not so far fetched. Not in the slightest.
Beyoncé's name has been smeared through some serious dirt because of her shady dealings concerning songwriting. I thought it may stop after her father was kicked to the curb, along with her own ability to write a song. But I guess not. I dig Beyoncé. I am a fan of her music and live performances. But I'm not a fan of her being a complete sham with the songwriting. Even artists for whom song writing is their main craft are not trying to claw their way into getting a song writing credit on their material. There are several songs on Keri Hilson's No boys allowed on which she is not listed as a song writer at all. Keri was more than happy to let fellow songwriters such as Ester Dean pen songs for her. This just goes to show the difference in regards to songwriting integrity between honest folk like Keri Hilson and Beyoncé.
Darth Daddy Mathew Knowles seems to have instilled this notion in Beyoncé that nobody will take you seriously or buy into you unless your name is credited on every song (a point he pinned Rob Fusari down with after the producer caught wind of Beyoncé taking full credit for his work on "Bootylicious"). Mathew never once seemed to have made a point of the fact that dishonesty and taking credit for somebody else's work is not only ethically wrong, but it's stealing. Nasty traits which will taint an artist if their acts of unethical practices come to light - which they have many times in Beyoncé's case. Every album Beyoncé has put out has been plagued with songwriting scandals. Yet she continues to get away with it and come out unscathed. As though nothing happened. Her reputation still very much intact. Power is clearly a wonderful thing.
I've always made a note of how Brandy rarely writes any of her songs anymore. But is her artistry and music any less amazing because of it? Hell no. Afrodisiac trumps on each and every one of Beyoncé's solo albums which she claimed to have written 98% of, and yet Brandy only wrote one song on it. Having your name tied to the writing of every song does not automatically make you a better artist. It's nice to know an artist you love and idolize can write their own songs. But it's the quality of the songs which draws you. Not whether they wrote it or not. Nobody would dare say Diana Ross, Whitney Houston or Namie Amuro are any less of an artist because they do not write every single one of their songs.
Beyoncé is not only looking like a thieving bitch, but she is discrediting the craft of those who take song writing seriously by making out she is one of them, when she is not. I'm not saying Beyoncé has never written a song in her life. There are many juvenile songs within the B and DC discography which I'm willing to believe she wrote. But when every album she releases has a slew of songwriting scandals follow it, you find it difficult to believe where Beyoncé's pen game starts and where the lies end.
It would be a nice turn if Beyoncé stopped. But when she's managed to get away with it for so long - why on the kingdom of lost wigs would she stop now?
The Beyoncé song writing scam chronicles...
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