Playing With Fire

Album: Tha Carter III (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • This brooding piano led piece features Soul & R&B singer Betty Wright, who had a #6 US hit in 1971 with "Clean Up Woman."
  • This was produced by StreetRunner, who told Rhapsody about this track: "Betty Wright's one of the old-school singers from the late '60s/early '70s. I wanted that big old-school voice. My attorney was doing some things for her and he mentioned her. She's from Miami so I was able to just get the mp3 of the hook. I told [Lil Wayne's engineer] Fabian when we were going to mix down, 'We gotta make her sound like a sample.' He put the effect to her voice to make it sound big, but at the same time, gave it a little dirt with the record crackle in there. Once Wayne heard that, it was a wrap. It kind of made it a new record. The drums were the same [as when Wayne first recorded it], but I added the guitars, more strings, and put Betty Wright on it. Sometimes that's good to do if you don't change the feel because you can make the artist fall back in love with the record if they were sort of losing their interest."
  • Lil Wayne was sued by Abkco Music Inc., a musical publishing company that owns the rights to the Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire." The company claimed that this profanity-laced track is an altered version of the Stones' 1965 hit, with the original music and lyrics having been changed in a recognizable way without permission. Abkco's suit added that Wayne's version used "explicit, sexist and offensive language" and could lead the public to believe that the Stones approved of and authorized the new version.

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