‘Vultures 2’ Smells Trouble: Ye Slips in Yet Another Sampling Issue With Portishead

Published 08/03/2024, 10:42 PM EDT

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'Vultures' has tested fans’ patience right from its first volume release. However, despite fans waiting, speculating, hoping, and scratching their heads at Ye’s delayed drops, the release never seems to come without controversy, at least not in 2024. 'Vultures 1' faced many hurdles, mainly due to its unauthorized sampling of songs. This even led to the album being removed from streaming services. Now that 'Vultures 2' is finally out, it has brought even more sampling controversy for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

Ye has landed in a sampling issue with a member of the popular English band Portishead just hours after dropping 'Vultures 2'. 

Vultures 2 continues Ye's sampling drama

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Geoff Barrow, who has been in the Portishead camp for a long time, alleged that Ye and Ty Dolla $ign have sampled the track 'Field Trip' from the band’s 'Machine Gun' without permission. Barrow shared a tweet about the 2024 track, writing, “FFS Not Again.” Barrow had raised a similar issue with The Weeknd a decade ago over the unauthorized sampling of the same track in 'Belong to the World'.

The Weeknd, however, claimed that his track was merely inspired by Portishead and did not accept the licensing request. There has not been a reaction from Ye yet regarding the accusation. Following the rollout of 'Vultures 1', Ye was accused of unethically sampling Black Sabbath’s 1983 live performance of 'Iron Man' and Donna Summer’s 1977 song 'I Feel Love,' which led to backlash from both fans and the owners of the songs.

‘Vultures 2’ News: Ye Eyes an Uncanny Record With Latest Album, Updates It Live

Black Sabbath’s lead, Ozzy Osbourne, and Donna Summer’s estate both came forward to address their grievances with Ye following the release of 'Vultures'.

Vultures 1 sampling controversies

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Ozzy Osbourne took issue with Ye’s most popular track from the first volume of 'Vultures', 'Carnival,' and publicly slammed the rapper for using recordings of their live performance of 'Iron Man' without permission. He alleged in a post on X that despite refusing the sampling, Ye “went ahead and used the sample anyway” during his Chicago listening party. “I want no association with this man!” stated Osbourne in his tweet.

via Imago

Even Donna Summer’s estate raised the same issue for the track 'Good (Don't Die)'. Donna Summer’s widower, Bruce Sudano, accused Ye of copyright infringement during an interview with Billboard, saying, “Kanye is a great artist, but wrong is still wrong.” However, back then, 'Vultures' had a third-party distributor who pulled its support from Ye. Now that Ye himself is handling the album’s rollout independently through his YZY, this controversy should not be as damaging for 'Vultures'.

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Ye's Does the Much Needed for His ‘GOOD (DON'T DIE)’ Track After It Gets Pulled off Spotify

What do you think about Geoff Barrow’s accusation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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Hriddhi Maitra

1456 articles

Hriddhi Maitra is a Hollywood News reporter at Netflix Junkie. An enthusiastic movie buff, Hriddhi found her true calling when she worked as a Cinema Content Writer at My Cinema Story while analyzing movies objectively, and offering constructive feedback. Coming from a background where she worked in different niches like finance, food, travel, medicines, automobile, and entertainment, we can safely say she is a jack of all trades.

Edited By: Aliza Siddiqui

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