On Monday, allegations surfaced that the trap duo Caked Up might have committed one of music’s worst crimes: plagiarism. When Oscar Wylde, one of the group's members, uploaded a mash-up of O.T. Genasis’ “CoCo” with the drop from “Chinchilla” by LA-based producer Jackal, he failed to clearly identify the original artists in the video’s description. Anybody familiar with the two songs would be able to distinguish them immediately, but a less-familiar ear might assume that they produced the track themselves. Four days after the video went up, G Jones decided to call out Caked Up on Twitter:
caked up literally copy pasted the drop from @JackalProducer 's tune chinchilla and uploaded it as their own tune https://t.co/3QgYkcQrE8
— G JONES (@gjonesbass) November 17, 2014
rly not one to talk shit but they literally copy pasted my homie's tune and are passing it off as theirs.... !!?!?!?!?!?! wtf
— G JONES (@gjonesbass) November 17, 2014
Oscar responded quickly with a screen shot of a tweet where he disclosed that it’s actually a bootleg of Jackal’s song.
@gjonesbass way before you even opened your shit talking mouth lmao, people like you are simply haters nuff said ✌️ pic.twitter.com/C4YS6GhXd7
— OSCAR WYLDE (@OMFGITSOSCAR) November 17, 2014
Here he is implying that the he is justified by virtue of the fact that he mentioned who made the original track while replying to one person on Twitter. It appears he believes that a single tweet constitutes crediting another artist.
Like in Hip Hop, sampling is an integral part of the EDM world. Remixes, bootlegs, and mash-ups allow a DJ or producer to express their creative vision while making a statement about their own unique tastes and current trends in the scene. This practice has always come under fire by musicians of other genres because copyright law explicitly forbids someone to use any part of a song, or create derivative works, without the consent of the original writer and/or their publisher. Essentially, it looks like plain old plagiarism.
To us, however, re-imagining a song and crediting the original artist is a form of flattery. It helps promote an artist to new fans that otherwise might not have discovered them, it helps build unity in a culture by connecting people from different walks of life, and it fosters a laissez-faire mentality that pushes the boundaries of creativity at lightning speeds. All of these benefits are immediately eliminated the moment that someone chooses not to credit an original author. Then, it is just plain old plagiarism.
It doesn't seem like Caked Up is trying to claim that they are the original authors of their recent upload, but they certainly didn't make a big effort to cite their sources. After all, keeping the upload ambiguous would have the added benefit of impressing those who aren't familiar with the original works. It could very well be that they just assumed everyone would figure out who wrote the two songs in question, but that is not a great excuse for being lazy when it comes to crediting other producers.
What do you think? Is Caked Up trying to pass this off as their own unique work, or did they simply forget to include some important details in their video description? Check out Jackal’s track here and Oscar’s upload here, then let us know how you feel in the comments below!
UPDATE
Jackal and Caked up are on good terms regarding the whole situation. We would love to hear what an actual remix would sound like. Still no word from O.T. Genasis' camp, though.
Meanwhile....
Nuff said. pic.twitter.com/tGglj1fazm
— CAKEDUP (@CVKEDUP) November 18, 2014