Dispute and Association With The KLF
In 1990 and 1991, respectively, British music duo The KLF - Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty - used unauthorized samples from "To the Bone" in the "stadium house version" of their tracks "What Time Is Love?" and "Last Train To Trancentral". When manager Eric Floyd by chance heard the former track at a disco, he sued Drummond and Cauty for copyright infringement. An 1993 article in Beat magazine quotes Floyd:
| “ | I'd never heard of these people and they'd never asked Wanda's permission to use her voice. They'd taken off her biggest selling rap single 'To The Bone' - the record opens up with Wanda saying 'I wanna see you sweat' - and sampled it right off the record and put it on What Time is Love?. It wasn't until I went to sue Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty that I discovered they had also taken from the same record the line 'come on boy do you wanna ride?' and slapped that on Last Train to Trancentral. they think it's OK to steal other people's material, by-passing other people's publishing companies and copyright, putting it into their own records, using their own studio wizardry, in releasing it to the masses. But they'd just gone too far this time." | ” |
With their own history of controversial sampling, the KLF agreed to a settlement: Wanda received a payment, a share in royalties and co-writing credits on the U.S. release of the album The White Room. Under the agreement, Wanda also appeared in the "Stadium House" video to "Last Train To Trancentral". Drummond and Cauty also agreed to produce a track for Wanda's upcoming solo album, but this collaboration never materialised. Wanda described her involvement with the KLF, beginning with the latter's copyright infringement: "I wasn't INVITED into The KLF, I was IGNITED!"
Wanda's temporary involvement with the KLF - including the album deal - abruptly ended when Drummond and Cauty left the music business in early 1992. Even before that, the duo had vehemently refused to advertise their records by going on tour. After they had disbanded (and deleted their back catalogue), Wanda took off on a two-year concert tour that spanned 150 cities in 90 countries. The show, dubbed "The KLF Experience featuring Wanda Dee" or "The Voice of KLF, Wanda Dee", combined the KLF's pre-recorded music with her own live vocals and lavish costumes. Drummond and Cauty, who were angered by Wanda's use of the KLF moniker, pleaded with their U.S. distribution company, Arista Records, to issue a cease and desist order, but the company ignored these requests, estimating that an international tour would only boost their sale of KLF material. Wanda's repeated claim that she had been an integral or even the decisive part in the KLF's success raised controversy among observers.
Read more about this topic: Wanda Dee
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