Baauer Being Sued For Uncleared Harlem Shake Samples

Unless you've been in a cave preparing for the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse, there is no way you haven't heard the song 'Harlem Shake' by Philly Disc Jockey, Harry Rodriguez, better known as Baauer.

Harlem Shake was released May 22nd, 2012 but didn't go viral until February 2013. Since that time it has reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. As the saying goes, with more money, comes more problems. The first issue is with Hector “El Father” Delgado, who states Baauer illegally sampled his voice for the Spanish spoken intro in the song. You can hear that sample in the video below.

The second, is with Philly-based rapper Jason Musson, who Baauer also sampled without the proper clearance and whose voice can be heard throughout the track as he is the one saying: "And do the Harlem Shake". The video below at the 3:57 minute mark is where the sample comes from (so you aren't force to listen to the entire track... like I was forced to).

As I hadn't heard of either of the other groups, I don't expect this to get too messy. But sample clearance is a big thing in the music industry nowadays. You will eventually have to pay the piper. Considering the relative small names of the 2 samplees, I would no doubt think they would settle out of court. Poor Baauer. It took almost a year and a bunch of crazy videos later *insert shameless plug for Kiss FM's Harlem Shake video here*  for him to become semi-rich & semi-famous, and now he may lose a big portion of that rich-ness. Here's to hoping he has

A.) really good lawyers or...

B.) a couple more number 1 hits in his back pocket.