T-Pain’s return to the market has hit a major snag. Aashiqui 2 director Mohit Suri and music composer Mithoon took to Twitter to illustrate similarities between the film’s title track, and T-Pain’s new single, “That’s Yo Money.”
T-Pain shared a link to the song on December 15, after which several fans pointed out sonic similarity to Aashiqui 2’s title track, Tum Hi Ho, a song that has been streamed over 200 million times on YouTube.
Mohit wrote on Twitter:
Dunno why but this seems familiar ??? #aashiqui2 #tumhiho @TPAIN https://t.co/69NJvAujsT . It’s a melody from Mithun’s song buddy @Mithoon11 @raiisonai @itsBhushanKumar
— Mohit Suri (@mohit11481) December 15, 2018
Mithoon later tweeted:
Sir, the melody that you have used in your new song is my original work for a previously released Hindi film..The Label is looking into this.#tumhiho #Aashiqui2 https://t.co/5fnDf4sfg7
— Mithoon (@Mithoon11) December 15, 2018
Sure enough, T-Pain’s song has been removed from YouTube, pending investigation of copyright claims.
Ultimately, T-Pain claimed ignorance of the sample, and that he never heard the original composition. After a deluge of tweets charging him with biting, he tweeted:
Woke up to getting dragged by brown twitter. Sooooo yea. I definitely didn’t produce this song. Had no idea that was a sample and have never heard the music before I got the beat from the producer. Easy thing to work out. The labels will be in contact. Thanx
— T-Pain (@TPAIN) December 15, 2018
The original song, Tum Hi Ho was was sung by Arijit Singh. Aashiqui 2 was a runaway hit at the box office, raking in over Rs 100 crore. T-Pain is a Grammy-winning rapper, known for his fondness for Autotune.