Brian May explains why Queen wouldn’t let “gangster rapper” sample them

nme.com:

Brian May has explained why Queen refused to let a “gangster rapper” sample one of their tracks.According to Radio X, in an interview with MOJO May said a rap artist wanted to use one of the band’s tracks as a sample in their music, but it didn’t align with Queen’s beliefs.

While May didn’t reveal who the musician was, he did give their reasoning for rejecting the sample request.“We have stopped them being used to promote violence or abuse, during the heyday of gangster rap when someone wanted to sample it in a song, we thought was abusive to women,” he said. “But otherwise, our songs are for everyone.

All art is theft.”Later in the interview, May said he originally disliked ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ due to its perceived glorification of Freddie Mercury‘s hedonistic lifestyle. “At the time, I didn’t feel comfortable about ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, probably for all the right reasons and the wrong reasons,” he said. “I think I resisted realising why people liked it for a long time.“Now, I think people love it because it contains all their dark dreams of hedonism – and that’s fine,” May continued. “I hear it all the time, though.

People say to me, ‘‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ feels like it was written for me, or my mum or my dad…’ It’s in people’s hearts and minds and becomes personal to them.