"Let's Go" is a song by

will.i.am William James Adams Jr. (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced "Will-I-am"), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is the founding and lead member of the musical group Black Eyed Peas. ...

that features

Chris Brown Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to ''Billboard'', Brown is one of the most successful R&B singers of his generation, having often been referred to by many contempor ...

, which was part of the former's fourth studio album '' #willpower'' before being removed in November 2013. The reason for the song's removal was due to the unlicensed sampling of " Rebound" by

Arty Arty may refer to: People * Arty (Queen), 8th century BC wife of Pharaoh Shebitku * Arty (musician) (born 1989), Russian record producer and DJ born Artem Stolyarov * Arty Ash, stage name of British actor Arthur Richard Dodge (1895–1954) * A ni ...

and

Mat Zo Matan Zohar ( ; born 30 April 1990), better known by his stage name Mat Zo, is a British producer and DJ. Zohar released his debut album, ''Damage Control'', via the Anjunabeats and Astralwerks labels on 5 November 2013. His second studio album ...

. It was replaced with " Feelin' Myself" on the re-release.

Sampling controversy

The song heavily samples " Rebound" by

and

. Arty made the claim via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

in April 2013 that

Interscope Records Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner Mu ...

had not asked for permission from

Anjunabeats Anjunabeats is a British record label started by producers Jonathan "Jono" Grant and Paavo Siljamäki of Above & Beyond in 2000. Initially exclusively a trance music label, around 2011 Anjunabeats started releasing primarily trance-edged hou ...

before will.i.am sampled "Rebound". Chris Brown stated in a tweet that he didn't know of the track's original source and claimed that he performed it due to a feature request. A statement was released by Anjunabeats that even though credit was given to Arty in the sleeve notes, doing so is not an appropriate way to obtain permission of clearing a sample, which was done following on from Arty's Twitter claim. Anjunabeats issued this statement in response to when will.i.am was quoted as telling the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...

in self-defence: In a later interview for

KIIS-FM KIIS-FM (102.7 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States, and broadcasts to the Greater Los Angeles area. The station airs a top 40 format. Owned by iHeartMedia, KIIS-FM is the origin of the conglome ...

, will.i.am went on to admit that he accidentally stole "Rebound" with the sample and was confused whether or not he had the right to use it for "Let's Go". The situation was elaborated on by will.i.am: "Arty is a dope producer so I wrote this song to 'Rebound' this last year. I got in touch with Arty and showed it to him, did a different version to it 'cause I asked him omake it newer 'cause I don't just wanna take your song and rap over it. But he said that after a year's time, "we preferred writing over and using the riginalrebound. Something happened and the clearance... hopefully we resolved the issue". The song was removed on the re-release of ''#willpower'' on November 26, 2013 and replaced as the fifth track on the album with " Feelin' Myself" after will.i.am contacted the owners of "Rebound" for negotiation. However, the audio was not deleted from will.i.am's

Vevo Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, ...

account on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

. In May 2013, Above & Beyond played "Rebound" at the

Electric Daisy Carnival Electric Daisy Carnival, commonly known as EDC, is an electronic dance music festival organized by promoter and distributor Insomniac. The annual flagship event, EDC Las Vegas, is held in May at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and is currently t ...

to make fun of will.i.am, and Mat Zo went on to do this too in June.

Charts

References

{{authority control 2013 songs Chris Brown songs Sampling controversies Song recordings produced by will.i.am Songs written by Chris Brown Songs written by will.i.am Will.i.am songs