Controversy
Despite the success of "I'm Real", there was controversy over the use of the single's sample and the structure of the song. The song contains an uncredited sample from Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1978 hit "Firecracker" (an electronic synthpop cover of Martin Denny's 1959 melody of the same name), while the remix on the other hand officially interpolates the Mary Jane Girls' 1983 song "All Night Long" as well as borrowing the melody from Rick James's "Mary Jane." There have been reports that the "Firecracker" sample was originally planned to be used for Mariah Carey's "Loverboy". According to the music publisher of "Firecracker", Carey called to license a sample of the song which had never been sampled months before Lopez called to do the same. Carey felt that former husband and music executive at Sony Music (Columbia Records), Tommy Mottola, was interfering with her career by arranging for the sample to go to Lopez. Upset by the conduct of Lopez and her ex-husband, Carey featured a reference to the song on her single "Loverboy", her first single released by her record company at the time, Virgin Records. The verse can be heard in Da Brat's rap section, where she sings, "Hate on me much as you want to / You can't do what the fuck I do/ Bitches be emulating me daily" over the melody of "Firecracker". Irv Gotti, who produced the remix of "I'm Real" featuring Ja Rule, openly admitted during an interview with XXL magazine that Mottola contacted him with instructions to create a song that sounded exactly like a song he had made with Carey for the Glitter soundtrack entitled "If We" also featuring Ja Rule. Furthermore, some in the African American community were outraged by Lopez's use of the word "nigga" in the Murder Remix. In response to this, Lopez said in between performances "For anyone to think or suggest that I'm racist is really absurd and hateful to me. The use of the word in the song — it was actually written by Ja Rule — it was not meant to be hurtful to anybody." Ja Rule also responded to this, defending Lopez by stating "I think it's silly I think the whole thing, like everything else, is being blown out of proportion." Rule said that Lopez was not the first Latino to use the word in a song, and that it hadn't been in an issue previously, adding it was something to let people get a chance to "poke her."
Read more about this topic: I'm Real (Jennifer Lopez Song)
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
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