Diddy Says He Pays Sting $5,000 Per Day for ‘Every Breath You Take’ Sample

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor + Reach Music Publishing has acquired both the master and publishing rights of heavy metal legends and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members Judas Priest’s first two albums, “Rocka Rolla” and “Sad Wings of Destiny,” from Gull Entertainments. According to the announcement, Reach will be working in partnership with Judas Priest on these two albums and is planning a variety of projects to be announced later this year, including special releases for the 50th anniversary of “Rocka Rolla” in 2024. The majority of the group’s catalog was initially released on Sony Music’s Columbia or Epic labels but the first two albums, released in 1974 and 1976 respectively, had been owned by Gull for nearly 50 years.  

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor For those without long memories, Everything But the Girl are a British duo that first emerged in the early 1980s as a sort of neo-jazz outfit combining Tracey Thorn’s virtuoso but downcast vocals and Ben Watt’s formidable guitar playing. Over the next 15 years they morphed impressively through different styles — from Smiths-style jangly alt-rock to the slick pop of “The Language of Life” — but with 1994’s “Amplified Heart,” electronics began to enter their latest jazz-trio-ish incarnation. And when house music producer Todd Terry’s dancefloor-driven remix of that album’s “Missing” became a surprise global hit, Watt immediately embraced the then-burgeoning drum n’ bass scene in the U.K. and within months was behind the turntables for nearly all of the group’s live sets. The next two albums, “Walking Wounded” and “Temperamental,” evolved this sound, with beats and atmospheric keyboards creating the backdrop for Thorn’s increasingly soulful singing.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant, Kacey Musgraves, Jason Isbell, Maren Morris, Margo Price, Mickey Guyton, Kelsea Ballerini and dozens of other top Nashville musicians are calling for the Tennessee General Assembly to pass “common sense gun safety legislation” before lawmakers end their session a few days from now, according to a report in the Tennessean. (A complete list of signees is below.) The letter calls for extreme risk protection laws and legislation strengthening requirements around secure storage of firearms. The letter was drafted after of the deadly Covenant School shooting last month, in which three adults and three nine-year-old children were killed. It was the 19 th shooting at a school or university in 2023 alone — one of hundreds of mass shootings in a country with a government that, largely due to Republican obstruction, refuses to pass more-thorough gun-control laws.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The Coachella festival probably has more top-shelf musical talent in one place at one time than any other event in the world, and 2023’s day one was no exception: All three Boygeniuses — Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — joined Muna for an afternoon finale, the two surviving members of De La Soul united with Gorillaz for their 2005 joint hit “Feel Good Inc.,” and Metro Boomin’s hour-long set featured more guests than a DJ Khaled album, with the Weeknd taking the stage for six songs and features from Future, 21 Savage, Diddy, Don Toliver, Mike Dean and more. Less successful was a hotly rumored team-up of main-stage headliner Bad Bunny with Post Malone, which was hobbled by major sound problems — “Something happened to el cabron cable!” Bunny fumed — but his duets with Jowell & Randy and Nengo Flow and Jhay Cortez were more successful (hey, there’s always next weekend). Elsewhere, Kaytranada brought out Kali Uchis and Amine, and the National’s Aaron Dessner joined Taylor Swift at — wait, that was a different concert…

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor It is no understatement to say that Timbaland is one of the most influential and successful songwriter-producers of the last three decades: Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Madonna, Drake, Bjork and even Chris Cornell are just the best-known of the literally hundreds of artists the man born Timothy Zachery Mosely has worked with since the Virginia-born, Miami-based hitmaker first popped onto the scene with records by Aaliyah and Ginuwine in the mid-1990s. His monumentally prolific musical output slowed down to normal speed for a few years while he focused on a multitude of other projects — most prominently “Verzuz,” the pandemic-spawned rap/R&B battle series he launched with fellow hitmaker Swizz Beatz, which he says has a top-secret announcement coming that will “take us to a whole other level”; and Beatclub, a curated platform for producers and songwriters to sell beats, demos and other song elements to artists, brands and music supervisors.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The legendary New York outdoor venue Forest Hills Stadium has unveiled its 2023 season, marking the 100th anniversary of the stadium and the ten-year anniversary of its renovation. The new season will feature around 30 music and comedy acts including Boygenius, the Strokes, Duran Duran, Dave Matthews Band, LCD Soundsystem, Fall Out Boy, Zach Bryan, Kevin Hart, Maggie Rogers, Weezer, Lane 8, The Smile, Arctic Monkeys, Jungle, plus the inaugural Head In The Clouds New York Music & Arts Festival and the return of Rock the Bells Festival, celebrating the 50th year of hip hop. Additionally, The New York Pops – the 78-musician independent pop orchestra will perform with Jason Mraz. The full lineup to date appears below; more shows will be announced in the coming weeks.

Diddy had everyone running to their calculators for no reason, it turns out, after the rap mogul revealed there's no truth behind him dishing $5,000 per day for sampling one of Sting's songs without his permission. Diddy on Friday took to social media and let it be known that he was only being «facetious» when chimed in after Sting, in a newly resurfaced 2018 interview with, said rumors that Diddy was paying him $2,000 per day «for the rest of his life» for sampling his song without his permission were true.Diddy now says, not so much.«I want y’all to understand I was joking! It’s called being Facetious! Me and @OfficialSting have been friends for a long time! He never charged me $3K or $5K a day for Missing You. He probably makes more than $5K a day from one of the biggest songs in history.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Drake is no stranger to taking jabs in his songs, and in his new single “Search & Rescue,” he’s apparently taking one at his frenemy Kanye West: The song features dialogue of West’s estranged wife, Kim Kardashian, apparently talking about divorce. “I didn’t come this far, just to come this far and not be happy,” Kardashian’s vocal fry-laden voice is heard speaking to her mother, Kris Jenner, on their reality show. “Okay, that’s fair,” Jenner replies. Kardashian then says, “Yep, I saw it on the internet.” The song’s lyrics are standard Drake fare about the travails of being a rich superstar looking for love: “I need someone to be patient with me/ Someone to get money with, not take it from me/ Look, they don’t even need to be as famous as me/ I don’t think I’ll meet them at the places I be,” raps Drake for the song’s chorus.

With every breath Diddy takes, he’s sending out some serious cash Sting‘s way!!

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Over the past few weeks it’s been mortifying, amusing and ultimately inspiring to witness the almost real-time reactions of the Cure’s founder/frontman Robert Smith to the hell-on-earth that is the concert-ticket purchasing process — and roll up his sleeves and do something about it. While high prices, availability issues and a bevy of vaguely defined “service fees” could be expected for such box-office record-breakers as Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, Smith was as surprised as anyone to see the prices on his group’s “Lost World” tour, its first for several years. While the group had managed to avoid such controversial policies as platinum packages and variable pricing, Smith was appalled to see hefty service fees added to the cost of “Verified Fan” tickets, which are intended to protect fans by keeping tickets out of the hands of scalpers, for the tour.

A very costly mistake. Diddy revealed that he’s still paying Sting for sampling his song in the ‘90s without getting permission first.

Diddy has been forced to pay Sting £4,020 ($5,000) each day for the rest of his life.The hip-hop icon was forced to pay the ongoing fee after sampling one of the musician’s tracks without permission in 1997.The sample in question was taken from The Police’s hit 1983 single, ‘Every Breath You Take’, which Diddy used in one of his most famous tracks, ‘I’ll Be Missing You”. He has now confirmed the hefty fees on Twitter after a 2018 Sting interview re-surfaced.Sting originally discussed the subject when speaking with The Breakfast Club five years ago– check out the clip below.Sting Reveals How He Clears His Song SamplesHow much did Diddy have to pay Sting to clear "Every Breath You Take"? Watch the full interview here – https://ihr.fm/2tDV4ZQPosted by Breakfast Club on Monday, March 12, 2018In the footage, radio host Charlamagne the God asked the frontman: “Is it true that Diddy has to pay you USD $2,000 (£1,608) because he didn’t ask permission to sample ‘Every Breath You Take’?” To which the former Police member simply replied: “Yep, for the rest of his life.”Sting – real name Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner – also stated that the R&B icon did ask him for permission to sample the track, but only after he had already released the song.Following the clip of Sting re-emerging on social media, Diddy took to Twitter to not only confirm the statement but also correct the musician on the actual amount he is expected to pay.“Nope.

Even after the lawsuits, it’s all love between Diddy and Sting.

Passive income, the act of making money from investments, properties, or anything that doesn't involve a lot of work, is a big deal to the kind of finance bros who love to make TikToks about their grindset. Sting doesn't strike me as someone who has ever even heard the phrase "side hustle" and yet it seems he's sitting on a pretty sweet one. Essentially having Diddy pay him $5k a day for the rights to his 1983 single “Every Breath You Take.” That is how much Diddy claims he pays Sting for his role in "I’ll Be Missing You," the 1997 single written in honor of the late Notorious B.I.G.

Sting is raking in the royalties with every breath he takes. According to Diddy, he pays the 71-year-old musician a whopping $5,000 per day for sampling one of his songs without permission. «Every Breath You Take,» written by Sting and released by his band, The Police, in 1983, was famously used in Diddy's and Faith Evans' 1997 tribute to the late The Notorious B.I.G., titled «I'll Be Missing You.» In a newly resurfaced 2018 interview with The Breakfast Club, Sting confirmed rumors that Diddy was paying him $2,000 per day «for the rest of his life» for his use of the song without asking. Sting added, «We're good friends now.» On Wednesday, however, Diddy took to Twitter to correct that number to $5,000 per day. «Nope.

Diddy has claimed that he now pays Sting a neat $5000 a day as a result of failing to clear a sample of The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’ on his 1993 track ‘I’ll Be Missing You’.This all arose after the website Black Millionaires dredged up an old interview with Sting in which he was asked to confirm reports from 2014 that Diddy was paying him $2000 a day.Speaking to Power 105.1 in 2018, Sting confirmed he was indeed receiving those monies, adding that Diddy would have to hand over that amount “for the rest of his life”. Though, he insisted, the two musicians are nevertheless “very good friends now”.Diddy, never wanting to be outdone, replied to this new report on the old interview to deny the claim, saying: “Nope.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Ray Shulman, a multi-instrumentalist known for his work with the progressive-rock band Gentle Giant and later a successful producer for the Sundays, Bjork’s early band the Sugarcubes, and many others, died on March 30. He was 73. The news was announced by his brother and Gentle Giant bandmate Derek, who wrote in a statement: “I am deeply saddened to announce that my younger brother and my best friend Ray Shulman passed away on March 30th at his home in London. I was with him until the end as he bravely battled a long illness. At least I know he is now at peace. “Ray really was a genius in so many ways. He was an incredible composer, musician, music producer and tech wizard. Together with myself and my elder brother Philip he was a founding member of Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and subsequently Gentle Giant. He went on to produce artists like the Sundays, the Sugarcubes, Ian McCulloch and many more. More recently he devoted his tech and musical expertise in authoring and remixing other artists like Jethro Tull, Genesis, King Crimson and many more.”

Coronation Street star Elle Mulvaney has been testing out a new look as she earns praise for her work on-screen. The actress is currently part of a big storyline for the ITV soap after her character Amy Barlow accused her friend Aaron Sandford of raping her.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Primary Wave Music has struck a partnership with multiple Grammy and Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan that sees the company acquiring a majority stake in her songwriting and recorded-music catalog. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it includes such hits as “Angel,” “I Will Remember You,” “Hold On,” and more. Following the success of her 1993 breakthrough album, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” the singer has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide, received three Grammy Awards and twelve Juno Awards and has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor This op-ed is jointly signed by the advocacy organizations the Songwriters of North America (SONA), the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), and the Music Artists Coalition (MAC). If you love songwriters and hate the many ways songwriters are underpaid, paid slowly, or not paid at all, please read the following: There is over a quarter billion dollars of mechanical-royalty income related to songs that were streamed between 2018 and 2022 that has not been paid — and there is no guidance on when it will. Why? Eyes down. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) is an organization responsible for receiving mechanical royalties from streaming services, matching the royalties for songs to the appropriate songwriters, and distributing that income to songwriters and publishing companies accordingly. The MLC is currently holding $373 million dollars in mechanical royalty income for songs streamed between 2018 and 2022.