Beyoncé’s team have denied Right Said Fred’s claim that the singer used their song without “approaching” them.
The pop duo criticised the use of their 1992 hit I’m Too Sexy being sampled on Beyoncé’s track Alien Superstar, and branded the Grammy winner “arrogant”.
Speaking at the 2022 BMI Awards, they said: “Normally the artist approaches us but Beyoncé didn’t because she is such an arrogant person, she just had probably thought ‘come and get me’, so we heard about it after the fact when you did.
“But everyone else, Drake and Taylor Swift – they came to us. To use our melody they need our permission so they send us the demo and we approve it and if so we get a co-write credit.
“With this Beyoncé thing there are 22 writers. It’s ridiculous so we would get about 40p.”
The group were referring to the use of their song on Canadian rapper Drake’s song Way 2 Sexy and Taylor Swift’s 2017 track Look What You Made Me Do.
However, Beyonce’s team has responded to the nineties pop groups claims, and have denied the accusations, insisting that permission was in fact granted and they were happy to be sampled on the album.
In a statement to The Sun, the singer’s team wrote: "The comments made by Right Said Fred stating that Beyoncé used I’m Too Sexy in Alien Superstar without permission are erroneous and incredibly disparaging. Permission was not only granted for its use, but they publicly spoke of their gratitude for being on the album.”
They also pointed out that only the composition of the song was used on the recent track, not the sound recording, adding: "Permission was asked of their publisher on 11 May 2022 and the publisher approved the use on 15 June 2022. They were paid for the usage in August 2022.”
Beyoncé’s team denied that Right Said Fred only had a small portion of the copyright percentage, and instead suggested they had a “substantial portion” of the song, concluding: "Collectively the Right Said Fred writers own more than any other singular writer and have co-writer credit. This accusation is false."
Alien Superstar is the third track on Beyoncé’s latest album Renaissance and has enjoyed over 73 million streams to date.
It’s not the first time the hitmaker has come under fire over copyright issues on her newest album.
She remove part of Kelis’s Milkshake from her song Energy after Kelis claimed the track was sampled without permission.
The Evening Standard has contacted Right Said Fred’s rep for comment.
