The eternal problem of using a sample in a record is that someone else can come along and do the same thing. That’s why I tend to avoid sample packs as much as possible – and the same thing applies when it comes to sampling someone else’s copyrighted recording.

And this is sadly something that Mike Delgado – he of The Murder Track, Byrdman’s Revenge and heaps of other stuff – has just found out. He’s not remotely happy that someone has had the temerity to use the same sample he did. Cast your mind back to this 2003 release…

Delgado produced this alongside Nicky P for Henry Street Music. It samples the 1979 song “Body Heat” by Rufus and Chaka Khan. A crowd pleaser, but you’d probably be hard pressed to find anyone who’d describe a disco loop with nice new drums on top as a musical masterpiece.

Not that this has stopped Mr Delgado from getting all indignant. An Italian producer called Alex M (real name Alessandro Mugnaini and pictured below) has apparently had the same idea – loop the exact same bits of “Body Heat” that Johnick did, and put different drums on it.

Too Many Rules, the label responsible for the release, have promised to take it down from the digital stores after a complaint from Delgado – at the time of going to press, (6pm UK time) the track remains online. Mugnaini shall have to rely on the other poorly sampled records he’s made…

Mr Delgado also pointed out what used to happen when disputes like this arose in the past. In a Facebook Live video on the subject, he said:

“You’re fucking lucky that there isn’t a music conference anymore. Whenever there was a conference down in Miami, everybody from the business would go down there. Whenever there was a discrepancy between anything – producers, DJs, artists – it gets settled there. You could sit down at a table and talk about it like gentlemen, or you could do it another way. I’ve done it both ways.”

Lesson of the day – if you absolutely must sample something, do something interesting with it. And if you absolutely must sample something that someone has already done well, you’d better bring your best game to it or get called out!