Fredro Starr, rapper, actor and member of the influential Queens rap group Onyx, recently sat down with Art of Dialogue and revealed that the group receives royalty checks from Travis Scott's “Sicko Mode.”
Scott's record – which also features Drake, Swae Lee and Big Hawk – samples Notorious BIG's “Give the Loot» from his debut album Ready to diewhich in turn sampled Sticky Fingaz's voice saying, “What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine,” from Onyx's debut single “Throw Ya Gunz.”
The late Jam Master Jay from the legendary group Run-DMC discovered Onyx and signed them to his JMJ imprint, executive producing their first three albums. “Luckily, Jam Master Jay told Puff Daddy, 'You gotta pay for that sample, my n—a,'” Fredro said. “So Biggie sampled 'Throw Ya Gunz' on 'Gimme the Loot' and Travis Scott sampled Biggie on 'Sicko Mode.' That's how it goes down. Every time 'Sicko Mode' gets a sync license, it comes through my email because my publishing company Universal is at the top of their business.”
He added: “Is 'Sicko Mode' at one billion? Astronomical numbers. That's why sh– it's called Astroworld, that's astronomical sh–,” he said. (In fact, “Sicko Mode” surpassed 2 billion streams on Spotify alone earlier this year.) “We get a little percent, but a little percent of something astronomical isn't bad.”
He also revealed that fellow Onyx member Sticky Fingaz has a “Sicko Mode” board and that Onyx influenced acts like Scott and $uicideboy$. “What Travis Scott is doing, all this raging, we started it. … We started slam dancing in hip-hop,” he said after referencing the group's 1993 single “Hit.”
When it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in December 2018, “Sicko Mode” became Scott's first No. 1 single on the chart.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/fredro-starr-travis-scott-sicko-mode-onyx-royalty-checks-1235828238/
