A New Zealand beatmaker whose track was sampled in a Jason Derulo song claims someone edited the YouTube description of the track to make the song seem as though it was free to use.
Seventeen-year-old producer Joshua Nanai's song 'Laxed (Siren Beat)' blew up on TikTok, where it came to the attention of US pop star Jason Derulo, who has since been accused of stealing the sample for his song 'Savage Love'.
Fans of Nanai called out Derulo in the comments section of his Instagram and TikTok posts promoting the new release, demanding the Kiwi artist be paid and/or credited.
Derulo responded by tagging Nanai's Instagram account, writing: "@jawsh_685 killed this beat" - a reply that many social media users rejected as not good enough.
Now in an Instagram Story, Nanai is sharing "the truth" about what happened to his music, filming his computer screen showing the YouTube video for his track, while he demonstrates how someone can re-code the text in the description box.
"Anyone can literally edit the text on Google and make it look like it was free lol," Nanai wrote.
"S/o [shout out] to the uso who did. You must feel styla [sic]."
Nanai's original song has reportedly amassed over 8 million views on Youtube and over 5 million streams on Spotify, as well as millions more on YouTube, according to multiple media outlets.
