Geoff Barrow Criticizes Kanye West, Ty Dolla Sign for Unauthorized Sample

Kanye West (Ye) and Ty Dolla Sign surprised fans by spontaneously releasing their latest album, Vultures 2. But the album’s arrival isn’t the only thing that has shocked the public.

Yesterday (August 3), Portishead’s Geoff Barrow discovered that the duo sampled the group’s song “Machine Gun” without permission. Over on X (formerly Twitter), Barrow publicly called out the duo for featuring its revered instrumental break on the Vultures 2 track, “Field Trip,” which also features Playboi Carti, Don Toliver, and Kodak Black.

“For f*ck’s sake,” he wrote. “Not again.”

Users online encouraged Barrow to take legal action. “Dude, you need to sue the f*cker,” wrote one user. “Jeezus, that’s not even sampling, they just used the entire song for a backing track for some sh*t karaoke. Zero creativity,” penned another. “Now that’s just a blatant ripoff, and you deserve to be compensated,” added another. “Make them delete the whole album,” demanded another.

However, not everyone shared the same sentiments. Fans of Ye begged Barrow not to take things to court. “Don’t sue Ye, this song is amazing, let us have it man,” wrote one user. “You should’ve said something after the first listening party it was previewed at bro, we finally got the music and now you wanna take it away,” added another. “Better to ask for forgiveness,” chimed another.

Ye has reportedly already been hit with several copyright infringement lawsuits from past projects, including Donda. Even Vultures 1 faced sample clearance issues, involving artists from Donna Summer’s estate to Ozzy Osbourne. But based on Barrow’s response, this is the second time Ye has reportedly misused his past work. Could this be the breaking point for more serious legal repercussions?