Portishead’s Geoff Barrow Peeved at Ye For Unauthorized Sample on Vultures 2′ Track: ‘Not Again’

5 August, 2024

After a series of release dates that came and went, Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and Ty Dolla Sign’s Vultures 2 album finally dropped on Saturday. And, like its predecessor, the second volume from the two MCs is getting criticized for allegedly not clearing some samples.

In a tweet from producer/DJ Geoff Barrow, the Portishead member wrote “FFS [for f–ks sake] Not Again [shrug emoji],” along with a screen shot of the Vultures 2 track “Field Trip.” The song seems to very prominently sample the instantly recognizable drum pattern from the 2008 Portishead track “Machine Gun,” though at press time neither Spotify nor Apple Music listed any production or sample credits for the song also featuring Don Toliver, Kodak Black and Playboi Carti and attributed to the rap duo’s joint name, ¥$.

At press time a spokesperson for Barrow confirmed that the tweet was from Barrow, but it was unclear if the musician or the group were planning to take official legal action for the alleged unlicensed sample; legal representatives for Ye and Ty (born Tyrone William Griffin Jr.) had not returned requests for comment.

Back in February, the estate of Donna Summer filed a copyright lawsuit against West in which they accused the rapper/producer of “shamelessly” using Summer’s 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission on the Vultures 1 song “Good (Don’t Die).” The estate’s attorneys said at the time that West “shamelessly used instantly recognizable portions” of Summer’s song in his track, despite her estate having already “explicitly denied” him authorization to do so. After the Summer estate’s public statements regarding the song before the filing, “Good (Don’t Die)” was pulled from streaming platforms and appeared to be pulled from digital versions of the album; at press time it was still not available on major streaming platforms.

In addition, after Ozzy Osbourne denied West’s request to sample one of his songs on Vultures 1 — a solo Ozzy version of the Black Sabbath song “War Pigs” recorded at the 1983 US Festival — the metal icon lashed out at Ye in February after the sample turned up during a listening party at Chicago’s United Center for the serially delayed first Vultures album.

“REFUSED PERMISSION BECAUSE HE IS AN ANTISEMITE AND HAS CAUSED UNTOLD HEARTACHE TO MANY,” Osbourne wrote at the time. “HE WENT AHEAD AND USED THE SAMPLE ANYWAY AT HIS ALBUM LISTENING PARTY LAST NIGHT. I WANT NO ASSOCIATION WITH THIS MAN!” Osbourne’s comment about Ye was a reference to the barrage of antisemitic comments and insults from Ye in late 2022 that caused the downfall of his once billion-dollar music and fashion empire and led to pariah status in the music and business world.

This is not the first time that West has been sued for illegally sampling or interpolating other artist’s songs into his tracks. In 2022 he was served with a lawsuit claiming his song “Life of the Party” illegally sampled rap group Boogie Down Productions. In another case he was tagged for using an uncleared snippet of Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 house track “Move Your Body” in the song “Flowers” and another case claimed he allegedly sampled a sermon by a Texas pastor on “Come to Life.”

This also isn’t the first time Barrow has called an artist out for allegedly sampling his band’s song “Machine Gun” without permission. In 2013, he accused The Weeknd of sampling the track from Portishead’s Third album on “Belong to the World” without asking first. “When someone asks to sample you and you refuse they should have the respect as a fellow artist to not use it,” Barrow tweeted at Abel Tesfaye at the time.

See the tweet from Barrow below.