Excellent news just prior to Record Store Day (and a nice antidote to the HMV palaver): Rough Trade Shops’ sales grew by a sweet quarter this last, um, quarter. Indeed, apparently they’ve posted a double-figure increase every year since they opened Rough Trade East in 2007. Will sales rocket ever further after they open their new shop in New York later this year? You wouldn’t bet against it.
Having your music ripped off is bad enough, without the insult of having it ripped off by Will.i.am. So it's no wonder that Mat Zo, whose track with Arty, 'Rebound', was apparently the template for Will.i.am and Chris Brown's track 'Let's Go', has deactivated his Twitter account. We can only assume it was out of shame, although he did post about the incident on Facebook:
"Arty and I are not bitter about this, more surprised. We knew Will.i.am was interested in this track, but declined working with him at the time.
"I really and truly appreciate all the support you are giving me and Arty in response to Will.i.am's copyright infringement. However, this doesn't excuse the horrific abuse you're sending the way of Will.i.am and Chris Brown, and it especially doesn't excuse being racist."
Chris Brown, always adept at defusing a situation, responded with: "I don't even know who Mat Zo or Arty is?". Will.i.am is, perhaps sensibly, keeping schtum.
Will.i.am's 'Bang Bang' is also claimed to be a rip-off of Sandro Silva and Quintino's 'Epic'.
We look back at some of the best EPs released over the summer, including debuts by Sudan Archives and Mighty Lord Deathman…
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