It took a while, but that “Blurred Lines” lawsuit from last year has ended up being huge for the “lawsuits against famous musicians” industry. Earlier this month, a pair of songwriters filed a lawsuit against Ed Sheeran, accusing him of ripping off their song for his hit “Photograph,” and shortly after that, a filmmaker sued Beyoncé for allegedly ripping off his short film for her Lemonade special on HBO. Now, according to TMZ (via Pitchfork), a producer named Brandon Parrott is suing Dr. Dre and 50 Cent over the 2003 track “P.I.M.P.” (which is credited with single-handedly creating the early-2000s steel drum craze).
Parrott says he sent 10 demo songs to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment in 2001, one of which—”BAMBA”—was sampled for “P.I.M.P.” a few years later. Parrott didn’t get a producer credit on the track or the album, but when he confronted the label about it, he was told it was simply a mistake and that the song’s producer—Denaum Porter—didn’t realize that Parrott’s beats were part of the final cut. Parrott accepted this and signed a settlement in 2003, but now he has apparently “heard interviews” recently that suggest he was lied to and that 50 Cent, Dre, and Aftermath purposefully took advantage of him. Presumably, the multi-million-dollar payout he could stand to win was also a big part of that realization.
And because you probably haven’t heard it in a while, here’s “P.I.M.P.”: