Lupe Fiasco and Pete Rock Settle Dispute Over Sampling of “T.R.O.Y.”

Well, that was fast.

The static between Lupe Fiasco and Pete Rock is officially over. After the legendary rapper/producer publically criticized Lupe for sampling Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s 1992 classic record, “T.R.O.Y.,” the two have settled their differences.

"I just got off da phone with lupe, we worked out our difference and we bout to get it in,” Pete tweeted out to the masses in the wee hours of Wednesday morning (May 23). "Gonna be epic and we gonna give Troy and hey the proper respect they deserve and make history."

Lupe added on his own Twitter account:

"Shout to the Friends&Family for bringing some internal closure to this. All g on this side Pete."

The squashing of the bad blood brewing between the two marks a quick turnaround from the stance each MC took in the past couple of days.

On Monday (May 21), Lupe dropped his lead single, “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free),” which sampled Rock’s “T.R.O.Y.” Irate, Rock took to his Twitter and sounded off in a tirade.

“No disrespect to lupe fiasco and i like him alot but TROY should be left alone. Feel so violated,the beat is next to my heart and was made Outta anguish and pain. When it’s like that it should not be touched by no one,” Pete tweeted Monday after he heard “Around My Way.” “I’m not flattered @ all. Dat sh– is wack, and the producer should be ashamed of his f–kin self. Smh.”

That triggered Lupe to respond. The Chi-town lyricist brought up the fact that other MCs have sampled “T.R.O.Y.” before and that he was shocked that the rapper/producer took offense to it after claims that his camp reached out to Rock’s before the record was cut.

“That was a little unexpected seeing that because we had already reached out to him,” Lupe said on WGCI’s Tony Sculfield and The Morning Riot show on Tuesday morning (May 22). “Yeah, [we reached out to him] to get his blessings. We wouldn’t had did it if [not]. Especially what it means to him and what it represents for him and how deep and how personal the record is for him.

“At the same time too, Heavy D passing and all that stuff, we tried to be as sensitive as possible with it and make sure we represented correctly,” added Lupe, who was referring to fallen rap legend Heavy D, who Pete Rock counted as a first cousin. “The friends and family is dealing with that,” Lupe added. “They the ones who put it together. The people who initially reached out to them from my camp to his camp, I guess they was on the phone [Monday] night, trying to figure out what was going on.  I’m kind of a third party. It was a shock to me and it was kind of best to fall back.”

He won’t need to fall back now that the dispute is over with. By the sound of things, fans can look forward to a collaboration between the two soon.—Mark Lelinwalla