Geoff Barrow claims Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign didn’t have permission to sample Portishead on ‘Vultures 2’

4 August, 2024

Kanye West and Geoff Barrow

Geoff Barrow has suggested Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign have sampled Portishead on a ‘Vultures 2’ track without permission.

The musicians released the long-awaited second instalment of the ‘VULTURES’ series on Saturday (August 3), with the first album having dropped in February this year. 

Two more volumes were scheduled to drop on March 8 and April 5, but the follow-up failed to materialise in March. Its release date was pushed several times, with West even failing to deliver the album after teasing its arrival on Friday (August 2).

Portishead’s Geoff Barrow has now joined scores of fans taking to social media to share their reactions to the album.

The Beak> member posted a clip of ‘Field Trip’ – which features Don Toliver, Kodak Black and Playboi Carti – as well as reportedly sampling Portishead’s ‘Machine Gun’ on X/Twitter.

Barrow appears to be referencing another instance when ‘Machine Gun’ was sampled without permission, writing: “FFS. Not again”, also taking to Instagram to say: “Why can’t he write his own beats?”

In 2013, The Weeknd released ‘Belong To The World’, and Barrow accused the Canadian singer of using the track without permission.

Tweeting directly at the singer, Barrow wrote: “When someone asks to sample you and you refuse they should have the respect as a fellow artist to not use it.”

Discussing the topic further and defending himself against suggestions from fans of The Weeknd that Portishead wanted more money to clear the sample, Barrow continued: “We usually give sample clearance to tunes we like. It’s got fuck all to do with money!

“As most of them are hiphop artists that are skint. Feels like I’m being used to promote the track now. I’ll shut up now.”

In other news, you can watch Team USA gymnasts enact the infamous Kanye West speech while picking up a gold medal at Paris 2024 Olympics.

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