Did Kanye West’s ‘Jesus Is King’ rip-off ‘The Legend of Zelda’? -

[Arm Pit Cream]

Random: Hmm, This New Kanye West Song Sure Sounds Familiar

Zelda, is that you?

www.nintendolife.com

(Doesn't archive)


If you keep up with your popular music news, you might well be aware that rapper and producer Kanye West dropped his new album over the weekend, 'Jesus Is King'. Usually, this wouldn't grant any coverage on our humble Nintendo website, but you might notice something a little odd about one of the tracks on the new release.

The second song on the album, 'Selah', continues the new record's Christian gospel style, but appears to blend in a section that will sound incredibly familiar to fans of the Legend of Zelda series. We've shared the full track for you below if you want to hear it naturally, but here's the section of the song we're talking about with a lovely portion of the Ocarina of Time soundtrack edited in.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, it's pretty clear that Kanye hasn't actually 'ripped off' Zelda - it follows the same chord progression but doesn't actually copy any particular melody - but it's hard to hear the new song without immediately bursting into the Zelda tune.

Gerudo Valley - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

Music: Gerudo Valley Composers: Koji Kondo Platform: Nintendo 64/ Nintendo 3DS Reupload of GilvaSunner: https://www.youtube.com/user/GilvaSunner

youtu.be

https://youtu.be/6CNPg2IQoC0 (0:59 in)

Kanye is a noted nerd/geek, almost calling his self titled "Ye" album "TurboGrafx-16".

This isn't the first instance in 2019 of a rapper using Zelda music:

Soulja Boy "Zelda" (OFFICIAL AUDIO)

Soulja Boy "Zelda" available now on DatPiff YouTube! Powered by @DatPiff iOS: http://piff.me/iphone Android: http://piff.me/android

youtu.be

 

[The Last Stand]

Considering how Nintendo is super protective of their IPs, I'd love to see how this could be classified as "fair use" against Nintendo.

Musicians often use melodies and samples from other songs and run with it. Objectively, I don't see anything wrong with this.

At least it's more transformative than what Soulja Boy tried.

 

[Arm Pit Cream]

Will anyone care next week ?

Definitely not, I don't think people care that much now.

 

[Oaat]

So if you change the key and speed it up in an audio editor then for part of the song that chord progression sounds the same.

 

[Harnessed Carcass]

When kayne does what ninten-dont

Smh ye didn't even rep the violin cover

 

[Tootsie Bear]

Nintendo should sue Kanye for how terrible his new album is!

 

[murgatroid]

Wow, Kanye is pretty deep in the insanity hole and has reached the devout christian phase.

 

[The Last Stand]

Wow, Kanye is pretty deep in the insanity hole and has reached the devout christian phase.

He has a big head and ego, what do you expect?

Edit: just a brief summary of his moments.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Hold it, it's a well known fact that 90% of the music in OoT and MM are all from stock libraries.

 

[Slowpoke Sonic]

He has a big head and ego, what do you expect?

Edit: just a brief summary of his moments.

He's bipolar too

 

[Nick Gars]

Crazy black guy who's pretty cool but fucking insane rips off a music track for his rap album.

How is this news? I used to make vaporwave, which is literally nothing but samples, I didn't get an article.


Jokes aside, seriously, who fucking cares? Kayne could sample DooM (my #1), and the only complaint I would have is that he put rap over it. Sampling is a part of music production, get over it.

 

[The Last Stand]

Jokes aside, seriously, who fucking cares? Kayne could sample DooM (my #1), and the only complaint I would have is that he put rap over it. Sampling is a part of music production, get over it.

Any other company, sure. But this is Nintendo, which isn't always understanding with people playing with their IPs. Only recently, did they lighten up with Youtube however.

 

[Absolutego]

Anyone who thinks Nintendo will even attempt to pursue this because some {{game journalist}} wrote an op-ed crying "this is just like my japanese vidya!" is beyond autistic.
I'm adjacent enough to gamer culture that I can recall several Zelda themes and I never even remotely thought of Zelda listening to Selah. You can't copyright a chord progression and there's literally no similarity beyond that. The timbre's different, the melody is different, this is like thinking a 4 chord song is copying another one.

 

[Rand /pol/]

Nintendo is shit and Zelda is shit so I hope he ripped their shit music off just because it would spite Nintendo.

 

[Marissa Moira]

People only give a shit because it's tangentially related to zelda, nobody gave a shit when he samped shit from a lesser known game series

 

[Jeffrey Epstein]

Now he can make more money off of boomer and the religious, hipsters, black people and nerds! Anyone think he's ever sincere about anything? Nope, me neither!

 

[mr.moon1488]

People only give a shit because it's tangentially related to zelda, nobody gave a shit when he samped shit from a lesser known game series

Lol I don't know why people would give a shit anyway. Half the big name Japanese games rip off stuff from foreign mythology.

 

[Nick Gars]

Any other company, sure. But this is Nintendo, which isn't always understanding with people playing with their IPs. Only recently, did they lighten up with Youtube however.

Fair point, I tend to forget that Nintendo is more litigious than your average Jew.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Crazy black guy who's pretty cool but fucking insane rips off a music track for his rap album.

How is this news? I used to make vaporwave, which is literally nothing but samples, I didn't get an article.


Jokes aside, seriously, who fucking cares? Kayne could sample DooM (my #1), and the only complaint I would have is that he put rap over it. Sampling is a part of music production, get over it.

There's no reason for press to go after you (and the useful idiots in following the press' direction), because you aren't famous and you don't wear a MAGA hat.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Lol, pretty blatant.

How long until the lawsuit?