Ne-Yo says the problems faced by Vybz Kartel and Spice for sampling his song “Miss Independent” on their biggest hit, “Romping Shop,” had nothing to do with him.
In an interview with Drink Champs, Ne-Yo says he wasn’t the one who refused to clear the track as he claims he wasn’t aware the track was sampled and didn’t have a problem with it anyway.
Thirteen years ago, Vybz Kartel and Spice dropped what is now one of the biggest songs in dancehall, “Romping Shop.” The song sampled “Miss Independent” but caused huge controversy for all the artists involved.
Miss Independent was a widely successful song for Ne-Yo as it became his first No. 1 hit. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song spent almost a dozen weeks on various charts and is now a platinum selling record.
However, after the release of “Romping Shop”, Vybz Kartel received a cease and desist letter threatening legal action from EMI Music Publishing. A letter from EMI was widely publicized, signaling that the era of dancehall artists trying out hip hop and R&B songs without permission was over due to the inclusion of technology.
The letter demanded that “Romping Shop” could not be released and that the artist destroy all recordings of the infringing song and that the song be removed from all websites.
This led Vybz Kartel to change the riddim to the song and re-release it since he didn’t ask for permission to sample the song in the first place. More than a decade later, Romping Shop is as successful as Miss Independent, which has 424 million views on YouTube.
In his interview with Drink Champs, Ne-Yo says he had nothing to do with the Jamaican artists who told them to change the riddim on the track. The artiste said he was ready to approve the permission as he knew of Vybz Kartel’s popularity at the time.
“I didn’t clean it … the streets cleaned it immediately, which made it virtually impossible not to clean it, even if I was thinking about not cleaning it, which by the way I never thought about not cleaning it,” he said. in NORE
Ne-Yo added that before seeing the rise in popularity of “Romping Shop” as it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, he was told about Vybz Kartel and the knowledge that he sampled “Miss Independent” without permission came as a surprise to him. .
“Before the song was introduced to me, I was introduced to the concept of Vybz Kartel and who he is. Like, that’s ‘that guy’ oh, and by the way, he did that to your song. It was presented to me like this. So I’m like, so what are we talking about now? Of course, it’s good. Why would I have a problem with that?” he told the hosts.
Ne-Yo added that “Romping Shop” inevitably helped raise his track profile.
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“To this day, I can’t be there and perform Miss Independent without giving support to what he did. You created a different vibe and it’s just outside of the effort I was trying to make. I have to give you love for that,” he said.
The artist added that, in his opinion, sampling is essential to teach the younger generation to make better music or experience an era they would otherwise not be able to grow up in.
“You have to understand, that it’s the generations that come after you … and if you decide not to let anyone face what you’ve done, because it’s what you did and you’re going to have this pride in it, then those generations don’t understand. . Those generations don’t get to experience it, they don’t get to enjoy it.”
“Romping Shop” is definitely one of the most controversial and sexually explicit songs from Vybz Kartel. The artist became known for his loud music, which also had a reaction from the society regarding the lyrics of the music.
The song was banned by the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica from radio and TV as it breached music publishing rules. This led the artist to create a “clean” version of the song.
