Method Man voiced his frustration with the trend of fake collabs and remakes in his most recent Instagram post.
On Thursday (October 17), the Wu-Tang Clan MC directly called out DJ Skandalous over a YouTube video he called an “unauthorized remake.” Method Man shared a screenshot of the aforementioned collab, entitled “Built For This,” which has accumulated well over 260 million views since its release in 2017.
The original track, produced by RZA, served as the soundtrack backdrop for the post criticizing the remix version, which includes versus from the late 2Pac, Ice Cube and Freddie Gibbs. However, Method Man alleges that not only is the track demonstratively inauthentic, it also steals the thunder of the original releases which the versus stolen from.
“I don’t know why this is a thing,” Method Man wrote in the lengthy caption. “But I hate the fact that ppl do these unauthorized remakes of records with fake collabs.”
Method Man already addressed the situation with Rivera, but alleges he ignored his request as he continued to vent about the situation.
“This guy I asked him a long time ago to take this trash down as it takes views away from the original content,” he wrote. “And he still has yet to do so.. over 200 mil views and not one penny to the creators.. no one takes into account the time and effort it takes to even make these records let along get these records, put out into the public for someone to come and do half the work and get twice if not quadruple the views of the original content.. whatever happened to IP rights..?”
Method Man continued, remarking on his approach to using the work of other artists and questioning why content meant for platforms such a YouTube isn’t subjected to the same process.
“Whenever I sample a record I have to inform the original creators and ask for permission to do so,” he wrote. “What makes YouTube any different? I am pretty sure you guys have seen a lot of these fake remixes but a lot of people don’t know they’re fake.”
Method Man went on to stress how these remakes compromise his artistry and jeopardize the reputation he’s handcrafted throughout his illustrious tenor as one of Hip-Hop’s most influential and successful lyricists ever. In doing so, he called out a host of other perpetrators directly in his address.
“I’ve heard my voice on beats I would never rhyme to and a lot of times the verses are offbeat,” he wrote.
“This is what we call hack s##t and I don’t respect it .. the main culprits are south central channel , golden age hip hop , and New Yorks finest to name a few.. and the person responsible for this piece of work Dj Skandalous actually reached out to make things right.. my reply was take the video down.. as you can see the video was never taken down.. he informed me though that he makes no money off of the video. My reply is then you should have no problem taking it down… but I guess it looks like he does..”
Method Man concluded his fiery statement with a call to action for his fans and supporters to chime in on the situation and let him know whether or not he’s overreacting to the situation.
“So I’ll just leave this here and let the fans be the judge,” he wrote. “Am I wrong for standing up or should I just sit down and shut the f*** up? FYI the song playing is the original song produced by Rza for the man with the iron fist sdtk..”
Method Man isn’t alone here, as there has been a spike in similar issues occurring as a result of the boom in the use of ai-generated music as of late. Earlier this year, Tupac Shakur’s estate issued a cease-and-desist letter to Drake and threatened to sue Drizzy if he did not take down his Kendrick Lamar diss track “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which featured AI-generated Tupac vocals.