By now you’ve likely heard of White Hinterland’s lawsuit against Skrillex and Justin Bieber regarding their hit collaboration, “Sorry.”
Hinterland, real name Casey Deniel, is claiming Bieber’s track wrongfully duplicates “the specific and unique characteristics of the female vocal riff” from her 2014 hit “Ring The Bell.” Not one to take a lawsuit lightly, Deniel wanted to take the time to explain her decision before the legal proceedings take effect.
On the other hand, Skrillex just uploaded a session to Instagram, showing how he made the vocal edit in Ableton. He took vocals from a Julia Michaels acapella, pitched them up, and there you have it.
/u/Leitilumo on reddit notes how common the scale of the sample used is in music, writing, “It is a simple fragment of an ascending pentatonic scale in E flat major. E flat is a normal key for vocal performances. Pentatonic scales are one the most natural things human beings tend to create, going back to simple beginnings.”
If the scale really is that common, and Skrillex has shown proof that the vocals did not originally belong to Deniel, then we can safely say this is case closed.
H/T Pitchfork
