While Baauer is sitting on the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the world’s hottest single “Harlem Shake,” he is being sued by artists Hector “El Father” Delgado and Jayson Musson for sampling their music without permission in his hit song.
The two parts of “Harlem Shake” that are being brought to the attention of lawyers are the lines “Con los terroristas” and “Do the Harlem Shake!”
The New York Times reported that former reggaetón artist Hector Delgado was surprised when he received a call from his manager saying his voice could be heard on a popular song sweeping the internet. Delgado had given up on the music business five years prior to become an evangelical preacher in Puerto Rico.
The line “Con los terroristas” that kicks off the song “Harlem Shake” is reportedly from Hector Delgado’s track “Los Terroristas.” Now the artist known as Hector “El Father” is lawyering up to take the 23-year-old producer to court.
“It’s almost like they came on my land and built a house,” Delgado told the New York Times on his discontent with Baauer.
“Hector will get what he deserves. We can turn around and stop that song. That’s a clear breaking of intellectual property rights,”added Delgado’s manager.
*”Con los terroristas” line at 0:20
The second part of the song that may be facing litigation is the single’s primary line “Do the Harlem Shake!” sampled from Philadelphia rap group Plastic Little’s 2001 single “Miller Time.” Jayson Musson, who rapped the line “If you bring a 40 oz. bottle to battle me/I’ll just punch you in your face/and do the Harlem Shake” in the 2001 song, reportedly called Baauer to thank him for “doing something useful with our annoying music.” That doesn’t mean Musson isn’t looking for payment from Baauer, he’s just being a lot more chill about it.
*”Harlem Shake” line at 3:56
When Philadephia-based producer Baauer, a.k.a. Harry Bauer Rodrigues, was asked by The Daily Best on how he got the idea for “Harlem Shake,” he responded:
“I just had the idea of taking a Dutch house squeaky-high synth and putting it over a hip-hop track. And then I tried to just make it the most stand-out, flashy track that would get anyone’s attention, so put as many sounds and weird shit in there as I could. The dude in the beginning I got somewhere off the Internet, I don’t even know where, and the lion roar just makes no sense. There’s the sound of flames in there, too, it’s just really low.”
Hopefully Baauer consults with his lawyers to obtain clearance the next time he decides to sample.
