Sauce Money Talks Losing $4 Million Writing Puff Daddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You”

KingsOfKings

🍊 𝑳𝒆𝒕'𝒔 𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝑵𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒔 ! 🍊
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
73,930
Reputation
33,532
Daps
94,838
Back in 1997, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs and Faith Evans scored a #1 hit on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart with “I’ll Be Missing You” featuring 112. The collaboration was a tribute song dedicated to the late Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace.

“I’ll Be Missing You” sampled the classic 1983 record “Every Breath You Take” by the English rock band the Police. According to reports, Police singer/songwriter Sting still makes around $2,000 a day from “I’ll Be Missing You” because he is credited as the sole owner of the intellectual property.

Many of the central figures in the creation of “I’ll Be Missing You” were apparently left out of the song’s profits entirely. Veteran rapper Sauce Money (born Todd Gaither) recently spoke to Hip Hop News Uncensored about his role in the making of Puffy’s second chart-topping single.

“When I wrote ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ for Puff… what happened was, he did bad business with Sting. Meaning that, before he got clearance to use the record, he put the record out. So Sting came back and was like, ‘Okay, well since you used the record before you got clearance, I want all the publishing off the record,'” said Sauce Money.

The Middle Finger U album creator continued, “At the end of the day, Puff didn’t care because he was making the money off the physical sales. He had a single release and an album release, so he ate a few times off of that record. So it didn’t really matter to him.”

Sauce Money went on to talk about how much residual capital he supposedly lost because of “I’ll Be Missing You.” He stated, “I missed out on about $4 million… We did something as far as the publishing deal that I had which is why I never really went at Puff because we figured something out on that end.”

The 51-year-old New Yorker also added, “That song generates about $730,000 a year. So you figure 10% of that is $73,000 and 20% is $146,000. You multiply that by 24, 25. So if I had a problem with him, you could understand, right?”

Puff Daddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You” was one of the most successful songs of 1997. The No Way Out track spent 11 weeks at No. 1 which was a record for a Hip Hop act at the time. It also won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and is presently certified 3x-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The Hype Williams-directed music video for “I’ll Be Missing You” was named Best R&B Video at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. Sting actually joined Puff Daddy on stage at that year’s VMAs for a show-stealing performance of the song which also featured Faith Evans, 112, a choir, and dancers."
 

Ghostface Trillah

God-level poster
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
12,347
Reputation
4,741
Daps
84,189
Reppin
Mt. Olympus
Sting taking everything. Only person off top he didn't completely fukk was Nas (The Message) because he was a fan of Illmatic lol. Flip side he took the majority of songwriting points for the Juice Wrld song that also sampled it.

He's within his rights as an artist to get 100%

Puff built his empire off samples so him not getting this cleared is really confusing to tell the truth. That's a major ball drop. It might not be much to puff but is probably the difference between a guy like sauce living in an apartment in the hood and a house in the suburbs.
 

L&HH

Veteran
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
53,464
Reputation
5,870
Daps
162,239
Reppin
PG x MD
He's within his rights as an artist to get 100%

Puff built his empire off samples so him not getting this cleared is really confusing to tell the truth. That's a major ball drop. It might not be much to puff but is probably the difference between a guy like sauce living in an apartment in the hood and a house in the suburbs.
Puff probably took the "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach. Puff by that point was already rich so he was likely willing to sacrifice whatever money on that specific song cause he'd make it back on the album sales, touring, and boosting his personal and Bad Boy's brand. IBMY was the second single on the NWO album. The success of that song probably helped All About the Benjamins become a smash hit too. IBMY was essentially a loss leader.
 

Harry B

Veteran
Joined
May 20, 2012
Messages
31,701
Reputation
-1,088
Daps
64,043
Puff handles a lot of shyt, him missing out on one clearance out of probably a thousand is not on him. It’s the lawyers and the army of staff involved in released a gigantic major label album/single, specially in the 90s.

He also said Puff and him worked something out. Perhaps not the full amount, but Puff lost just as much. And if it wasn’t for Puff he wouldn’t even have the chance to make that bread at all.
 

Ghostface Trillah

God-level poster
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
12,347
Reputation
4,741
Daps
84,189
Reppin
Mt. Olympus
Puff probably took the "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach. Puff by that point was already rich so he was likely willing to sacrifice whatever money on that specific song cause he'd make it back on the album sales, touring, and boosting his personal and Bad Boy's brand. IBMY was the second single on the NWO album. The success of that song probably helped All About the Benjamins become a smash hit too. IBMY was essentially a loss leader.

Yeah but back then samples were like $500 to clear and it was well known that Sting had a team of people that listen to everything looking for stuff from his music. No way he thought he would get away with a direct rip of I'll be watching you. Someone dropped the ball or forgot to mail something somewhere and sauce is the one dealing with it.
 

360dagod

Veteran
Supporter
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
25,159
Reputation
4,070
Daps
65,326
Reppin
SAN ANTONIO SPURS NY DIVISION
Yeah but back then samples were like $500 to clear and it was well known that Sting had a team of people that listen to everything looking for stuff from his music. No way he thought he would get away with a direct rip of I'll be watching you. Someone dropped the ball or forgot to mail something somewhere and sauce is the one dealing with it.

Puff straight jacked it and worried about the consequences later...

The record was too big for sting not to clear

When you sitting on a game changer, you dont wait...

This is right after biggie died...

Puff seized the moment
 

Ghostface Trillah

God-level poster
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
12,347
Reputation
4,741
Daps
84,189
Reppin
Mt. Olympus
Puff straight jacked it and worried about the consequences later...

The record was too big for sting not to clear

When you sitting on a game changer, you dont wait...

This is right after biggie died...

Puff seized the moment

And got nothing for it. Apparently the record was too big for Sting not to clear. Sting ain't some old starving artist. Dude is like UK music royalty so names like Puff Daddy and Biggie Smalls don't mean shyt to him.

Why seize the moment and rob yourself instead of fast track the clearance or pay a little more?
 
Top