Beatles for sale: Rappers, brands turn to Fab Four
Susan Butler

NEW YORK/LONDON—It’s perfectly legal, but it will still seem to some listeners like the sound of someone making off with England’s crown jewels. On rap collective Wu-Tang Clan’s new single “The Heart Gently Weeps,” a Santana-style rock guitar opening gives way to an almost celestial chorus of something very familiar. There, and throughout the track, is the unmistakable melody of George Harrison’s timeless contribution to the Beatles’ “White Album” from 1968: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Now, the track is accompanied by Wu-Tang’s trademark, uncompromising language, rapping out a gritty street story, even as Harrison’s son Dhani plays along. Meanwhile on the just-finished “Judas,” Ja Rule is introducing the rap community to another incongruous musical motif. This is no unthinking appropriation of a classic act’s creativity, as has sometimes been the case in rap. As he works at folding the original flavor into the hook of this midtempo treatise on “love, hate, jealousy and betrayal,” he’s doing so with the help of “Eleanor Rigby.”
Forty years and more after the Beatles changed rock music forever, their songs have truly arrived in the 21st century as part of the rap/hip-hop art form — with the express permission of their publishers. Although there are hundreds of covers of “Yesterday,” “Something” and the rest, this approach of “interpolation” — essentially rerecording a portion of a song — of the Beatles’ compositions represents new access to the most famous catalogue in the world. These developments may ultimately signal a fresh attitude toward Beatles masters appearing in everything from commercials to movies
CAN’T BUY ME LOVE
But don’t expect to hear samples of the Beatles’ original recordings, which remain strictly under lock and key, for now at least. Instead Sony/ATV, which owns all but a handful of the Lennon/McCartney copyrights, is allowing a select few to license some celebrated compositions and reference them in their own, newly recorded material.
The first lucky participants in these interpolations are acts from the arena of hip-hop and rap, with Ja Rule joining Common — who used “She’s Leaving Home” on “Forever Begins” from his current album “Finding Forever” — and Jay-Z, who commandeered “I Will” on “Encore” from his 2003 “The Black Album” and “Numb/Encore” on his 2004 collaboration “Collision Curse” with Linkin Park. Meanwhile, Wu-Tang licensed rights from Harrisongs, George Harrison’s publisher, for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Ja Rule’s “Eleanor Rigby”-appropriating “Judas” will appear on his next album, “The Mirror,” due in the first quarter, while the Wu’s Harrison-referencing “The Heart Gently Weeps” is the first single from its new album “8 Diagrams,” which came out December 11. The song features a re-created backing track plus electric guitar by the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante as well as acoustic contributions from Dhani Harrison.
Sony/ATV chief executive Martin Bandier says he’s very much in favor of licensing Beatles songs for things that haven’t been licensed in the past — under certain circumstances. Jay-Z, Common and Ja Rule received Sony/ATV’s blessing because “they’re prominent and well-regarded,” Bandier says, but the way the song is used must also be acceptable.
“If Jay-Z interpolates a Beatles song and his album sells 2 million units, it doesn’t change the economic structure” of the license deal, Bandier says. “It’s wonderful to have that income, but we’re more concerned about the possible repercussions of a bad message and something that we might not find tasteful.” The ever-sensitive nature of the Beatles’ copyrights is reflected by the reluctance of several key players to participate in this story. Paul McCartney, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Jones (who became Apple Corps’ new CEO in April) and EMI Music U.K. and Ireland chairman/CEO Tony Wadsworth were either “unavailable” or declined to comment.
In fact, Sony/ATV is not contractually required to obtain approval by John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, or by McCartney before it can license the compositions, but Bandier says he believes there is a “moral obligation” to speak with them about licensing the songs. In the internecine history of the Beatles’ publishing, Lennon and McCartney effectively lost control of the group’s song rights even while the group was still a recording entity, in 1969.
That was when Northern Songs, the company established six years earlier solely to publish their joint compositions by English publisher Dick James and Beatles manager Brian Epstein, was sold to British media tycoon Lew Grade’s ATV Music. Ownership of ATV subsequently passed to Australian entrepreneur Robert Holmes a Court and then, in 1985, to Michael Jackson.