A Dundee rapper with links to some of the music industry’s biggest names claims global superstar Eminem “stole” the concept for his new album from a track released five years ago.
Darren Stewart, who performs under the name Zee the Dungeonous, believes the Detroit hip hop star also copied the release date and title for the new Music to Be Murdered By album from his 2015 release.
Both Mr Stewart’s track and Eminem’s album use audio samples from film director Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 vinyl record of the same name.
A video looking at the claims is above this article
The Dundee rapper said his suspicions were heightened after Eminem – real name Marshall Mathers – unveiled his new record on January 17, exactly five years to the day after Mr Stewart released his single.
The track also features rapper Gavin Bain, known as Brains McLoud, one half of the duo Silibil N’ Brains, whose exploits pretending to be American to trick record company executives were featured in the documentary film The Great Hip Hop Hoax.
Mr Stewart and Mr Bain both have links to Eminem through D12, a hip hop group formed in the late 1990s by up-and-coming Detroit artists, including Mathers and his alias Slim Shady.
Mr Stewart, who is originally from Pitlochry, worked with group member Bizarre after meeting the collective at a gig in Glasgow in 2008. The american star also guest featured on Zee the Dungeonous’ Murder Zee Wrote album.
Mr Bain and collaborator Billy Boyd, who met at college in Dundee, were signed to Sony records, played on a UK tour with Eminem and appeared with D12 after pretending they were from a small town in California to gain credibility.
Mr Stewart believes the similarities between his track and Music to Be Murdered By are too striking to be a coincidence but claimed Eminem is likely to “get away with it” because he is a more established artist.
Mr Stewart said: “At first I thought the shared sample/concept/title was a minor coincidence. Then the very same release date, while it could be another coincidence, freaked me out a little.
“But after thinking about our connections to D12, it doesn’t put it too far out of the realm of possibility that Eminem, through Bizarre, heard my track, dug for the sample I used, and took the concept.
“Obviously the richer artist with the louder fan base is the one who gets away with it.”
A spokeswoman for Polydor Records, when asked whether it wished to respond to Mr Stewart’s allegations, said: “Unfortunately not.” Parent company Universal Music Group failed to respond to multiple requests for comment.
Eminem put out his eleventh studio album on Friday with no prior announcement and has received a positive response from fans. However, the track Unaccommodating has been criticised for referencing the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
In 2010, The Courier reported how former Grinderman frontman Nick Cave denied stealing a hook from Dundee musician Frankie Duffy and his former band’s 2005 track Grey Man for the song Palaces of Montezuma.
