BIG APPLE RAPPIN'The Early Days Of Hip-Hop Culture In NYC 1979-1982(Soul Jazz Records)
While being able to collect the classics that we grew up on is a beautiful thing, understand that some artists, including myself, are never paid for these compilations, and to make matters worse, are never even consulted. Bam and I had a conversation about how to stop this. If artists that we all respect and care about are not paid, should we support these "labels" that do this? Who is Soul Jazz? The title track for this compilation is my production, and the label it was originally on, is my label, so ther is no one to ask for licensing on this particular song but me! Yet, i discovered this by googling my name. That ain't right Yo! Old School Hip-Hop is the mecca for all of us to get together and discuss our culture that we created, yet, our culture is still being exploited and ripped off! I am going to get with Red Alert and Bam and start a coalition to make sure artists start getting their due on these type of compilations. I still make music, still have deals, but one day that won't be the case. Shouldn't my two grand daughters be able to eat off of my work when I'm gone?Noy if this stuff keeps up!One,Spyder D
www.spydomusic.comwww.charlottekrunk.comGo to Top of Page
http://oldschoolhiphop.forumco.com/topic~TOPIC_ID~12404.asp 
pookeyblow
406 Posts
Comments
Them fools got the kizzash too,boycott hard.
Shit is wrong.
Apparently they did the same shit on the blackjazz comp as well.
Go get em Spyder.
indeed, from the Black Jazz site:
"A company by the name of
SOUL JAZZ RECORDS has been illegally manufacturing BLACK JAZZ PRODUCT. They have put out a compilation entitled " The Best of Black Jazz"on Universal Sounds/Soul Jazz Records. This Fraudulent act was done without my permission. Please DO NOT PURCHASE any of these illegal LP's and CD's from this company SOUL JAZZ RECORDS. We are currently proceeding with a LEGAL remedy to get this company to cease and desist. You can help us by emailing us to inform us of any distributors and retail stores and E-Commerce sites that may have this ILLEGAL PRODUCT
"The Best of Black Jazz".
email: [email]blackjazz@mindspring.com[/email]
ph: 510-452-5299
Thanks for your support.
James Hardge Jr.
President, Black Jazz Records"
wrong[/b]
Some sheisty Aaron Fuchs-type cat obtained some of the rights to Black Jazz releases and instantly started slinging mud at Soul Jazz / their sublabel Universal Sounds. I happen to know for a fact that Stuart (label boss) flew out to the USA to sort out the licensing and reserach some background info.
this is old stuff. Please dont take cues from people who used to post pics of lynchings on their website...
Wow, thanks for the
FYI:
The Black Jazz compilation on Soul Jazz was released over a year[/b] before Mr Hardge gained the rights to the label's name. The royalty agreements w/ the BJ artists were made directly by Soul Jazz before mr selling-official-black-jazz-bomberjackets-on-my-site had anything to do with the "label".
Do your homework, kiddies.
Fair call,which is why i used the word Apparently[/b].
As for this other NY comp!!, i sure as hell wouldnt want Bam[/b] chasin my ass down.
PEACE[/b]
OK, so the Black Jazz comp is legit, but what about Spyder D's statement? I'm not not trying to defame Soul Jazz, 'cause I always figured them to be a label with a heart for the music. Their comps, reishes and new releases are always quality. I just want to hear some inside info, and it seems you have a connect with the SJ folks.
A friend of mine once ended up paying out the advance on a license twice when he was persuaded by the presence of a shotgun that he'd paid the wrong person the first time, and I have had to withdraw a comp when it turned out that the original label owner had already sold his rights once or twice.
I don't know the story here but Soul Jazz are not rip off merchants.
/L
I heard a similiar thing about the Jazzman label as well. Or that he says he only presses 500 copies but really makes 2000. Something like that.
I seriously thought that Soul Jazz would have some major chops & would investigate all this stuff.
Hell, they've been doing it for what 13/14 years now.
I'm sure some of the people would be very hard to track down, but Spyder D. He's had a website for years & has been easily contactable. The mere fact that he had no idea, let alone be contacted about the compilation is pretty shady. The fact that thay even released a limited Edition 12" prior to the 4 vinyl set & double CD is crazy & then it being named after his own record is insane. & he had no idea about it???
Makes me wonder about all the other compilation...
Not very cool. Actually this is very fucked. I just upped this on my blog 2 days ago after being sent a promo copy thinking how good it was, etc...
I actually wanted this for the Solo Sounds track.
Wonder what happened with the very similiar Mark B compilation 'Harlem World' a few years ago on the Heroes & Villians label.
this is the truth right here....in any dealing I had with Stuart (many years ago), this is one upfront and legit cat. no way would he purposefully rip someone off.
My own experience.....I recorded a Yusef Lateef track and wrote lyrics to it. I got in touch with Yusef himself, who after previewing my lyrics (he won't allow cursing to be associated with his music), gave me the full right to go ahead and release my version. Shortly after that, he was told by Screen Gems publishing that he didn't own his own song, even though he had never sold ANY of his publishing over his entire career. That became a long winded battle, which honestly may be going on to this day....
spyder d needs to also direct his anger at the party who got paid
i'm sure soul jazz can provide paperwork as to who claimed ownership
& that is the crook who's feet should be in the fire
my long experience is that there are about half a dozen sides to these stories
(veteran of the coxson wars, brad's clocktower battles & a dance or 2 who blackwell, blacka & bigs)
/L
Please to hold your horses - this is not the end of the world.
This doesnt change anything about the actual music, does it?
Knowing Mark B, i'd say....
And Jazzman licensed Walking On The Moon as well.
PBW & Egon sort their people out when they re-issue. So I always thought Soul Jazz would as well.
But Spyder D not even knowing about it seems pretty poor no matter who owns the friggin rights.
Of course the music is important, hey I'm pro-sampling, but I would have thought that with all the additional packaging that somewhere along the line the person on which the compilation is named would somehow be privy to it.
Sounds like Spyder D is more dissapointed that he knew nothing about it & that no-one even bothered to track him down. Which was like one piss easy google search away.
btw
Have I missed something on here over the years about Mark B?
He just produced a friend of mine's album down here & he seems like a pretty decent fellow... But I have noticed that people on here don't seem too keen on him. Like he chucked a spew on here about something or was out of order in regards to something...
I'm still in the dark.
Ya did.
Mr. B actually threatened Raj w/ a violent death trough different friends - a situation beyond
let me guess...dispute over money, records...or girl(s)? is it safe to talk about this? please lemme know...
"Don't start none, it won't be none"...
dojah
Also sometimes you will license something and the artist will not know about it. If for instance I license a Marva Whitney track from Universal there is no way that they will tell her that it's coming out -it's their asset to with as they will is their opinion.
If you release enough records eventually you will piss someone off, and its far better to judge people on the vast number of records that do come out without anyone complaining.
Honestly if someone is shady - like Charly or Goldmine you will soon find out about it.
Um personal stuff that was made public I presume... Hope it wasn't some stupid shit over records...
I hope it was all sorted out in the end.
I don't know dude that well, but he's always been polite to me...
But don't you think that if you are going to name your compilation after a certain artists very known song (among these circles) & that they are very easy to track down (ie Spyder D), that it would be nice to notify the artist in question.
Its a shitload more difficult to press up CDs & vinyl than it is to send an email.
Just curious. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this becasue it does bring up a lot of interesting questions
This is all true. Most of the material under discussion here, even if it hasn't been sold on umpteen times, will be covered by old contracts. Unlike nowadays, the performers or songwriters will almost certainly have no right of approval over licensing unless they own their masters and publishing, and the labels/publishers are therefore under no obligation to tell them what they're doing. Sad, but that's old-school music biz practices for you.
Spyder D's beef may be legit to an extent, but that's not to say that Soul Jazz wouldn't have licensed the masters in good faith from people they had every reason to believe were the rights owners. I know for a fact that Soul Jazz also pay proper mechanical and phonographic performance royalties at full stat, on publishing and broadcast of the recordings. The former would go to whoever owns the publishing and, if the publisher bothers to account to him, Spyder should see some corn from that. PPL income will go to whoever owns the masters. Take care of business, before business takes care of you.
If you're the Dean I think you are, then you've got enough experience in this game to know what you're on about. And you're spot on about Charly.
.... and as is the case with ESG, there will always be someone claiming they didn't get paid or they didn't get proper credit. 99.99999% of the time that is because someone, somewhere, signed a contract preventing them from doing so.
The people behind this comp are 100% professional and are not in the business of swindling people out of loot - quite frankly they do not need the loot.
Motherfuckers on this site really need to do a little bit more thinking before throwing such allegations around, this is a business and it's not right to run someone's name through the mud before you know the facts.