The world wide supernet buzzed with the news that Wu-Tang Clan had been the first band to attain legal permission to sample The Beatles. But that beepbeepbeeping sound you hear is the Wu backtracking from their claim.
The band has since posted this message on its MySpace blog:
The statement that we made yesterday was incorrect and we apologize for any confusion it may have caused. We DID NOT sample the Beatles, i repeat, we DID NOT sample the Beatles, rather we did an INTERPOLATION of the classic George Harrison composition ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’ In a historic collaboration, Dhani Harrison, son of George, through his friendship with the RZA, played guitar on the song and he himself helped secure the REUSE LICENSE. Also appearing on the song are John Frusciante, guitar player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Erykah Badu singing the chorus.
So there you have it…sorta. The whole situation is fairly confusing, which was probably the goal when the Wu made the claim in the first place. Composition samples and master samples, who the fuck cares? Just take a listen to the track courtesy of loud.com and see whether you like it. If you or if you don’t, does any of it really matter? It’s the fucking Wu-Tang Clan, not Iran’s nucular program. My takeaway from this is that I need to read the Wu’s MySpace blog more often…
