We were stunned last month when we saw a performance from pop star Doja Cat at the MTV European Music Awards, where she offered a metal remix of her pop smash "Say So." Some fans immediately noticed the solos sounded familiar, and they were from guitar shredder Plini. The ensuing online drama resulted in Doja Cat reaching out to Plini and apologizing for the oversight.
The Plini solo comes from the song "Handmade Cities" off the album of the same name, which came out in 2016. At the time, he wrote "someone tell @DojaCat that if she digs the arrangement of this at 2:50 onwards, then she would love my song "handmade cities"" He went onto comment that he thought it was an "awesome performance" and that he found it "absolutely hilarious that something i wrote 4 years ago in my bedroom would find its way here. The lack of prior communication about it or proper credit upon release is disappointing but not particularly surprising in a sector of the industry that is usually more interested in clout than creativity. (it’s being sorted now, but would have been cooler a million views ago)"
In a new interview with Music Radar, Plini offered an update on the matter and noted that Doja Cat reached out via DM voice messages to profusely apologize. He tells Music Radar:
You recently made headlines after the Handmade Cities title track got used by American popstar Doja Cat for her MTV EMA performance. After the initial surprise, that must have felt like quite a compliment…
“I’m pretty much stoked with it on all levels. A few people sent over this link saying they’d seen Handmade Cities used in this performance and I listened to it and thought it did sound that song… which was odd! It was a strange context to use something that sounded way too similar to be a coincidence.
“I made a comment on Twitter, not really accusing anyone of anything but just because I thought it was funny… and then it turned into this whole thing. I suppose the fans really did all the work, they had all the outrage on my behalf. I was just sitting back wondering what the fuck was happening and finding it hilarious.”
So, if you don’t mind us asking, what happened in the end?
“It turns out the Musical Director of that performance had been inspired by it and some of the band knew about it beforehand, thinking it was cool that the riff was getting used. Which must have been an honest mistake, not perhaps realizing it could have been an issue in some way, that’s what I like to think, because I like to assume the best. And then it eventually made its way to Doja Cat…
“The best part of all this is that I woke up one day with a string of voice messages from her in my DMs, saying sorry and that she wished she’d known about all of this and wished they could have credited me properly, and also praising my song and thanking me for being nice about it.
“I thought about that and realized it was the number one strangest thing that’s happened to me in my career. One of the biggest pop stars is messaging me an apology because someone kinda ripped my music for her live performance. Life is so fucking weird (laughs). As far as I’m concerned it’s a great story.”
It's nice to see Plini not take things too personally, but it would've likely been better if this was all squared away beforehand.
