Steely Dan didn’t think Kanye West was good enough to sample their music: “Too repetitive”
While they may have been subject to plenty of scorn at the time for being outliers in the world of rock music, there’s no denying that Steely Dan were actually two of the most talented songwriters on the circuit throughout their initial run as a group.
The duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have come a long way in recent years in terms of retrospective opinion, and have legions of younger fans listening to their records, perhaps because they predicted the movement of pop music and made something that would last forever. People were initially reluctant to respond positively to their jazz-inflected soft rock, but their approach to songcraft is something that doesn’t feel as though it can be limited to a particular point in time, and this is what has helped their music live on in subsequent years.
One way in which younger artists tend to pay their respects to older acts is through covers, but others may choose to use a small sample and reinterpret the music of their favourite artists in a different and more modern way. For a modern audience, one of the ways in which people may have first discovered the music of Steely Dan is through sampling, but despite them having permitted a number of acts to take their material and restructure it, they haven’t always forthcoming in allowing newer acts to use their songs.
Some of the biggest hits of the 21st century have revolved around sampling, but Steely Dan have taken plenty of convincing in some instances that this would be beneficial to them. For example, there was significant controversy around hip-hop group De La Soul using a sample of ‘Peg’ on their 1989 song, ‘Eye Know’. Despite there being plenty of other samples on the song, most notably including the whistling from Otis Redding’s ‘Dock of the Bay’, Fagen and Becker are the only other additional credited songwriters on the song.
The band also claim the majority of the royalties for ‘The Man Don’t Give a Fuck’ by Super Furry Animals, which repeats the line “you know they don’t give a fuck about anybody else” in the chorus, and was lifted from ‘Show Biz Kids’. Fagen was allegedly upset at there being such a prominent use of their work in the song, but after settling with the band, he now collects 95% of proceeds from the track.
However, there was one notable sample that they almost didn’t allow full stop, and had to take some persuading for it to be allowed. In a 2013 interview with Cleveland Scene, Fagen admitted that they’re often asked by hip-hop acts whether they can use a sample of a Steely Dan track. “From time to time we get requests for license for hip hoppers to use part of an old song or something,” he claimed. “We got a clip of something from Kanye West wanting to use a piece of ‘Kid Charlemagne’ and we thought it was – we usually say yes, but we didn’t like the general curve of the way that one sounded.”
While Fagen may have criticised the song for being “too repetitive”, he eventually relented and allowed West to use the sample of the The Royal Scam track. “He sent us a handwritten letter which was so heartfelt that we finally gave in and acceded to his request,” Fagen explained. While ‘Champion’, taken from West’s third studio album, Graduation, was not a hit, the use of the sample arguably completes the song, and considering his appreciation for Steely Dan, you can imagine that West was thrilled that they eventually gave in to his demands, and it would undoubtedly have become another reason for younger fans becoming interested in Steely Dan’s work.
