According to Variety's blog The Set List, Blaxploitation renaissance man Melvin Van Peebles (TMT Feature) recently filed a $20 million lawsuit with the New York State Supreme Court against ASCAP, a major organization that collects licensing fees and distributes royalties to musicians, songwriters, composers, and publishers.
Van Peebles is perhaps best known for directing, starring in, and composing the score for 1971's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, but he's also the writer and director of many other films, the writer and composer of the Broadway show Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death, and the musical mastermind behind 10 full-length albums (many of them soundtracks).
Van Peebles' concern stems from ASCAP's failure to list all of his 157 registered compositions in their newfangled electronic database, which includes only 24 of them. He alleges that the disappearance occurred between 1992 and 2005. This oversight, he alleges, prevents him from charging appropriate licensing fees to those performing or using his songs. The Set List, on some detective shit, reports that "allmusic.com lists only one of his tunes being covered by an artist not associated with one of films, Grace Jones, who recorded ‘The Apple Stretcher.’"
However, as astute Set List commenter "dave" notes, Van Peebles has long been a source of hip-hop samples. Indeed, according to sampling database the-breaks.com, more than a dozen hip-hop tracks have used pieces of Van Peebles' recordings. ASCAP's sampling policy puts the organization in a position to negotiate fees for sample usage, further legitimating Van Peebles' complaint about his missing compositions.
Interestingly, Van Peebles' future projects include a collaboration with Madlib, whose Quasimoto alias is one of the heaviest users of Van Peebles samples. According to Madlib's label, Stones Throw Records, Van Peebles' next release will be a double album encompassing one disc called Brer Soul Meets Quasimoto as well as an album-length "Madlib Invazion remix." Van Peebles also recently completed his eighth feature film as director, entitled Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus ItchyFooted Mutha. The film was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in late April.
