After The Smoke Vs Yelawolf Part 2

Some of you may recall earlier this month indie hip hop duo After The Smoke (Anthony X² and Whuz) got upset with Yelawolf after a track titled “Far From A Bitch” f. Rittz, Young Struggle & Big HUD hit the internet. The beat Yelawolf and friends rapped over was produced and released by them as a song titled “One In A Million” a year prior.

After The Smoke – One In A Million by afterthesmoke

The instrumental had originally been shopped around and had come into Yelawolf’s possession quite some time ago. While he had initially recorded to it, he ultimately decided not to use it, scrapped the song and did not purchase the beat. This is a pretty common practice in music so when nobody purchased the song, the producers of the track decided to use it for themselves on their own project. About a year later the track surfaced on the internet with a new name and no credit or reference to “After The Smoke” was given. The group got understandably upset and released a statement on their tumblr asking people to contact all the blogs and correct the situation and inform them it was their song and they’d like credit for it.

“YELAWOLF RAPPED ON THE “ONE IN A MILLION” BEAT, RENAMED IT “FAR FROM A BITCH”, PUT HIS BOYS ON IT, AND RELEASED IT ONLINE TODAY WITHOUT GIVING US ANY CREDIT. LEAVE COMMENTS ON HTTP://WWW.HOTNEWHIPHOP.COM/YELAWOLF-FAR-FROM-A-BITCH-SONG.652434.HTML AND ANY OTHER BLOG YOU FIND THE SONG AND LET THE PEOPLE KNOW IT’S AN “AFTER THE SMOKE” SONG. WE WILL GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS. #EKOMS”

One of the tracks collaborators, Rittz, responded to the controversy pretty quickly releasing a statement to address to situation and clear things up.

While Rittzs statement is a tad overblown considering 99% of genuine unauthorized leaks originate from within the artists own camp and not the internet, this is where the story should end. It was acknowledged that the track was not intentionally released, and it was never the intention of any of the artists to steal the song or withhold credit for the track. They acknowledged After The Smoke’s ownership of the song and encouraged people to go check out more of their music. Everybody is happy. Right?

Wrong. Apparently Universal Music Group now believes they own the copyright to “One In A Million” (OIAM) and have had its video removed from YouTube under a copyright claim. You can’t make this stuff up. Once again “After The Smoke” is rightfully upset and released the following statement on their website.

“SORRY FOLKS
YOUTUBE TOOK DOWN THE OIAM MUSIC VIDEO AND CLAIMED THAT UMG OWNS THE COPYRIGHTS TO OUR SONG. APPARENTLY, UMG HAS THE POWER TO TAKE DOWN OUR VIDEO BECAUSE ONE OF THEIR ARTISTS RAPPED ON A BEAT THAT I MADE FROM SCRATCH. THIS IS WHY REVOLUTION IS NECESSARY. WE NEED LESS CORPORATE POWER. WE NEED MORE ARTIST POWER. WE NEED MORE PEOPLE POWER. – ANTHONY X²”

This isn’t the first time that UMG has abused the content censorship tool afforded to them via their VEVO agreement with Google. Most recently they removed a MegaUpload promotional video initially claiming copyright and then arrogantly claiming they can do whatever they want under their Vevo Contract. Back in July, UMG inexplicably removed UK artist Skepta’s single “Dare To Dream” from the video service claiming copyright violation in an apparent attempt to buy time and negotiate a deal to purchase the track for Eminem.

Coincidentally Yelawolf is signed to Eminem’s Shady Records, which is under the Aftermath/Interscope/UMG umbrella.

At some point you’re just left speechless….

Update: It appears After The Smoke has fought back, having the Yelawolf video removed from YouTube.