Rapper T-Pain’s track has been pulled down from YouTube over copyright infringement and the accuser is Bollywood composer Mithoon. Mithoon claims the track copies Tum He Ho from Indian movie Ashiqui 2.
While plenty of Bollywood hits have been labeled flankers or inspired by Western tracks, this is a first that a Western rap track has allegedly copied a Bollywood song.
How does a rap track with a completely different BPM copy a Bollywood slow romantic number? The track does incorporate Indian instruments and the opening rift is a lot like the chorus of Tum He Ho.
T-Pain dropped the single as a surprise for the holidays. He was even more surprised by the song’s traction on YouTube.
When Indian film director Mohit Suri pointed out the similarity on Twitter, music composer Mithoon called out T-Pain for copyright infringement.
Sir, the melody that you have used in your new song is my original work for a previously released Hindi film..The Label is looking into this.#tumhiho #Aashiqui2 https://t.co/5fnDf4sfg7
— Mithoon (@Mithoon11) December 15, 2018
After that, according to T-Pain, Indian Twitter got touchy. While some fans just liked the fact that T-Pain even looked at Bollywood music, others were enraged.
https://twitter.com/djvipmog/status/1074001094844579842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/AkashRabade/status/1073965691319902208
Some folks were just happy Bollywood music is on the Western music map.
https://twitter.com/SumedhK76/status/1073970896803651584
West copying India. Haha. What a turnaround. Classic. 🇮🇳 https://t.co/ezWhgsXAKv
— Siddharth Shah (@SiddharthKShah) December 15, 2018
T-Pain was then called out on his comment, by the same gentleman Mohit Suri that pointed out the copied rift in the first place.
Brown Twitter !! Sir is that what your response is .?? is this a apology or foolish ignorance .if you hadn’t been so stuck up in your world and realised that this song has crossed over a billion streaming’s .maybe you would understand #Shameless @Mithoon11 @itsBhushanKumar
— Mohit D Suri (@mohit11481) December 16, 2018
Some people called out T-Pain for the racist comment.
What a pain Mr. T… how do you make music ? It’s so important to be a good human being & your racism shocks me! https://t.co/VKPCrvZbUW
— salim merchant (@salim_merchant) December 16, 2018
Others didn’t think it was racist and appreciated the rapper’s taste in Hindi music.
https://twitter.com/kevolution514/status/1074099118572822528
Many musicians have been shamed for cultural appropriation in their music videos or stage performances from Coldplay’s Hymn For the Weekend to music as far back as Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The fact that T-Pain is being called out for stealing the beat is why its a big deal. This is a first incident of its kind as far as the Internet knows.
https://twitter.com/queenjanki/status/1074272160678432768
The deal is that the legal battle between the recording studios will be talking big bucks. The West may not take cultural appropriation seriously but it takes serious offense to copyright, which is why after years Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines lost to Marvin Gaye’s Family.
