Many social media users including prominent media personality Edna have taken to social media to raise awareness on the similarity they have noticed between melodic Zambian singer JC Kalinks’ ‘Maradona’ and American dancehall singer Sean Paul’s ‘Let it talk To Me featuring Romanian singer INNA.’
JC Kalinks released his single Maradona four months before Sean Paul released his ‘Let It Talk To Me featuring INNA’. Hence, social users are calling out the dancehall artist for sampling Maradona without crediting singer JC Kalinks.
With discussion raging throughout social media, many wonder if it is true the song was sampled. There is a similarity between the songs, but why isn’t it taken down? Well, renowned Zambian music producer and rapper KB Killa Beats shades more light on the possible scenarios.
The producer in a response to a post on media personality Edna’s post said, “Sampling is completely different from how y’all understand it. Sampling is getting a piece of an original song, weather pitched up or down, and put in daw and add instruments.”
He continued, “Normally, when you try to upload on streaming platforms it gets detected, that’s sampling. This one is a case of interpolation. Similarities, that’s very common. There are millions of songs out there. There is huge possibility in finding similarities.”
According to online resources, the term “interpolation” refers to using a melody or portions of a melody from a previously recorded song in a new song, instead of directly sampling the original recording, the melody is re-recorded. A good example for sampling is what Nigerian singer Burna Boy did with his single ‘Last Last’ which he sampled from Tony Braxton’s ‘He Wasn’t Man Enough.’
KB Killa Beats further shared, “If indeed he heard JC Kalinks song, then what he did was interpolation. Listened to it and liked a certain melody and replayed it, or it was just a coincidence that they played a similar melody. Until it’s proven beyond reasonable doubt that they took a piece of the original song and made theirs, it becomes very difficult. Ed Sheeran won a case recently, similar situation – interpolation.”
KB Killa Beats acknowledged what everyone heard, but according to his expertise, as explained above, he highly suspects it to be interpolation and not sampling. Therefore, it could be true that Sean Paul sampled JC Kalinks’ Maradona or it was pure coincidence in melody similarities as there might be thousands, if not millions of songs out there with a similar melody.
Other social users have called on JC Kalinks to sue dancehall singer Sean Paul for intellectual property theft whilst other have advised him not to as costs to pursue the lawsuit is far beyond his capacity, stating that it is not worth a the fight.
As of the time of publication of this article, singer JC Kalinks has not released a formal statement or comment regarding the issue. Eyes are on the singer’s socials as they await the issuance of a statement that seems highly unlikely.
