R&B artist Jason Derulo rips off New Zealand teen’s music, dubbing it his own (for a while)
You may not know the name Joshua Nanai but if you’re a follower of TikTok you’ve most definitely heard his dub-style track Laxed (Siren Beat).
The 17-year-old New Zealand musician – who goes under the handle of ‘Jawsh 685’ – created the music, inspired by a Polynesian / Pacific Island beat played through siren speakers, usually attached to cars or bikes.
Due to its accessibility, Laxed (Siren Beat) has been featured in over 750,000 TikTok videos and viewed more than 43 million times, while it has become TikTok’s most viral soundtrack.
So why didn’t anyone warn urban artist Jason Derulo about this before he sampled the track and credited the music as his own? Fool.
Derulo is now coming under fire for sampling the music in his new song Savage Love which he has “created” whilst in isolation.
The R&B icon dropped a few bars of his track – which uses the Laxed melody as its main hook – to his 20 million-plus TikTok followers, initially posting the clip without credit to the New Zealand teen.
This lead to instant outrage from Nanai’s followers, with one writing: “You not slick Jason Dorito, we seen you delete it the first time cos it was getting flooded with hate.”
In response Derulo then went all gushy and thankful with his next post, writing: “Had fun remixing @jawsh_685 siren beat #SavageLove 🔥🔥🔥 summer vibes,” possibly not realising it’s winter down under.
Whether Derulo makes a huge profit from actual downloads of his ready-made tune and, more importantly, whether Joshua Nanai earns royalities from those sales or not, is left to be seen.
Antonino Tati
CREAM MAGAZINE 
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