Jay-Z paid for my whirlpool, says Swiss musician in plagiarism case

Musician Bruno Spoerri has a bubble bath thanks to rapper Jay-Z Keystone-SDA

Swiss music pioneer Bruno Spoerri says he has US rapper Jay-Z to thank for his whirlpool. Jay-Z paid Spoerri CHF30,000 ($32,700) for sampling one of his works without permission.

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In 2015 a friend of Spoerri’s told him that Jay-Z’s song Versus sounded very much like an excerpt from Spoerri’s piece On the Way, recorded in 1978 for the experimental film Lilith, the Schweizer Illustrierte wrote on Monday.

+ Jay Z accused of stealing Swiss music sample

In a BBC interview, Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, claimed he had written the song together with producer Timbaland. “Fake news! They simply stole my song, lowered the melody half a note and amplified the beat,” said 89-year-old Spoerri.

Thanks to a publisher, an out-of-court settlement was reached at the time. Spoerri says he used the money he received to buy himself a new shower as well as a whirlpool. He also receives “a few francs a year” in royalties.

Spoerri is a pioneer of the Swiss music scene in the fields of jazz, film music and electronic music. Over the past 70 years, he has performed on stages around the world. In 2017 he received the Swiss Jazz Award for his life’s work.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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