While the award-winning songwriter questions why the pop star has 24 writers for a track, the music producer applauds the 'Lemonade' hitmaker for the matter instead.
- Aug 4, 2022
AceShowbiz - Beyonce Knowles has been making headlines following the release of her new album "Renaissance" that drew mixed responses from people, including fellow artists including Kelis and Diane Warren. While the latter questioned why Beyonce has 24 writers for a track, Questlove applauded the "Lemonade" hitmaker for the matter instead.
On his post on Wednesday, August 3, Questlove replied to Diane's tweet which read, "How can there be 24 writers on a song?" In his response, the music producer compared the situation to the controversy over "Blurred Lines", in which Marvin Gaye's estate sued Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke. The artists lost the suit.
"In these post 'Blurred Lines' times you're gonna see a lot of it. I actually applaud her giving people a seat at the table who otherwise woulda NEVER been considered otherwise," Questlove wrote to Diane. "Like she didn't 'have to' credit the 'Show Me Love' crew but just outta respect she did them a solid."
He went on to say, "I pray they win the Grammy just so all 400 participants can get shine they otherwise woulda never seen."
Author Michael Harriot joined the conversation as he wrote, "If white blues, folk and rock musicians paid & acknowledged the Black artists they stole from, some of the songs from Diane Warren's youth would also have 24 songwriting credits." To that, Questlove replied, "Imagine if [Led Zeppelin], [The Rolling Stones], [The Beatles], British Invasion did the due diligence-and credited the people to whom their catalogue is derivative from? [smiling emoji]."
When someone told Quest that Beyonce needed to add other names to her list of credits as well, he responded, "Yeah. Unfortunately the burden of industry rules shouldn't be on Bey's shoulder." He added, "I believe remixers should get credit for reimagining a song. And writers should get credit if they wrote a song (I get your point but both of those problems existed way before Bey came along."
Diane, meanwhile, was under fire for her tweet on Monday. After receiving backlash, the awards-winning songwriter, who has also worked with Queen Bey herself, denied shading the singer. "This isn't meant as shade, I'm just curious," she insisted before adding, "That's 23 more than are on mine."
