Ariana Grande's '7 Rings': Art Or Legal Trouble?

Ariana Grande's 2019 hit 7 Rings has been the centre of multiple controversies, including accusations of plagiarism and copyright infringement. Despite this, the song broke numerous streaming records and became Grande's second consecutive number-one in the United States. So, how did it not break the law?

Ariana Grande settled a lawsuit claiming she stole the melody from another song

In 2020, Ariana Grande was sued for copyright infringement for her hit single "7 Rings". The lawsuit was filed by Josh Stone, a hip-hop artist and producer who goes by the stage name "DOT". Stone accused Grande and the songwriters of plagiarising lyrics from his song "You Need It, I Got It".

In the chorus of "7 Rings", Grande repeats the lyrics "I want it, I got it". In Stone's song, he repeats "You need it, I got it. You want it, I got it". Stone claimed that one of Grande's producers, Thomas Lee Brown, was present at a conference where "You Need It, I Got It" was played. Brown allegedly liked the song and wanted to work with Stone.

"Literally, every single one of the 39 respective notes of 7 Rings is identical with the 39 notes of I Got It from a metrical placement perspective," the court notes said. Stone also claimed that "highly regarded musicology experts" had concluded that the beat, hook, lyrics, and rhythmic structure of "7 Rings" were lifted from his song.

In March 2021, a judge dropped the lawsuit as the defendants claimed that they had "no monopoly over everyday phrases such as 'I got it'". Grande and 13 other defendants, including her publishers and several songwriters, settled the lawsuit with Stone. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

She gave songwriting credit to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein

Ariana Grande's song "7 Rings" interpolates the melody of "My Favorite Things" from the musical "The Sound of Music", which was written by the songwriting duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. As a result, 90% of the song's songwriting royalties go to the estates of Rodgers and Hammerstein, who died in 1979 and 1960, respectively.

Grande's record label, Republic, struck a deal with Concord, the publishing company that owns the rights to Rodgers and Hammerstein's catalog, just weeks before the release of "7 Rings" on Grande's album "Thank U, Next". Concord requested 90% of the songwriting royalties for the license, and Grande's team accepted the terms without further negotiation. This is a notably higher percentage than the 50% of royalties that Rodgers and Hammerstein received when Gwen Stefani sampled "The Lonely Goatherd" from "The Sound of Music" in her 2006 track "Wind It Up".

The commercial success of "7 Rings" has resulted in substantial revenue for Concord. The song spent six weeks at the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart and has been streamed over a billion times worldwide. This success, combined with the high percentage of royalties going to Rodgers and Hammerstein, means that Concord stands to make millions of dollars from the deal.

While "7 Rings" interpolates the melody of "My Favorite Things", the lyrics are more transgressive and modern. For example, the wholesome line "Raindrops on roses / And whiskers on kittens" from "My Favorite Things" becomes "Yeah, breakfast at Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles" in "7 Rings".

Fans boycotted the song to boost the success of another single

Fans of Ariana Grande, known as Arianators, called for a boycott of the singer's hit single "7 Rings" in 2019. The boycott was an attempt to get another of her singles, "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored", to reach the number-one spot in the charts. The fans created the hashtag #Boycott7Rings on Twitter, which the singer herself acknowledged and appeared to approve of.

"Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" was the third single from Grande's fifth studio album, "Thank U, Next". After the album's release on February 8, 2019, the track began climbing the charts, but its top competitor was Grande's "7 Rings". By boycotting "7 Rings", fans hoped to ensure "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" would become her third number-one hit.

Grande responded to the boycott with a series of tweets, expressing her amusement at the situation and her love for her fans. "Y'all are so insane and funny and I love u. Nothings funnier than 'boycott seven rings'..... i can't lmao. Whatever's meant to be will be, babies I ain't goin' nowhere #thankunext," she tweeted.

The boycott was a win-win scenario for Grande. If fans succeeded in getting "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" to top the charts, she would become the first solo artist to earn three number-one singles. The singer even went as far as to retweet posts urging fans to boycott the track, despite appearing to have a mixed reaction.

The boycott of "7 Rings" highlights the dedication and influence of Grande's fanbase, who were willing to take extreme measures to support their favourite artist and help her achieve even greater success.

The song interpolates The Notorious B.I.G.'s Gimme the Loot

In popular music, interpolation refers to using a melody or portions of a melody (often with modified lyrics) from a previously recorded song but re-recording the melody instead of directly sampling it. In the case of Ariana Grande's "7 Rings", the song interpolates "My Favorite Things" from the Tony-winning Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film "The Sound of Music", written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. This means that "7 Rings" recrates the melody of "My Favorite Things" note for note, reflecting the underlying composition. By interpolating the melody, Grande was able to recreate the composition of "My Favorite Things" without directly sampling it or breaking any laws.

In addition to interpolating "My Favorite Things", "7 Rings" has also been the subject of a lawsuit claiming that it interpolates the melody of another song without proper credit. Josh Stone, a hip-hop artist who performs as DOT, claimed that "7 Rings" interpolates the melody, beat, hook, lyrics, and rhythmic structure of his song "You Need It, I Got It", which he wrote and recorded two years earlier. Stone alleged that Grande and her producers had access to his song and repackaged it into "7 Rings" without his consent.

While the specific details of the settlement are not known, it is likely that Grande and her team were able to resolve the lawsuit by providing proper credit and/or compensation to Stone for the interpolated melody in "7 Rings". This would be a standard procedure in cases of interpolation, where the owner of the underlying composition (in this case, Stone) needs to give permission for the interpolation to be used.

It is worth noting that interpolation is a common practice in popular music, especially in hip-hop and pop genres. Some notable examples include Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" interpolated in Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", Sting's "Shape of My Heart" interpolated in Juice WRLD's "Lucid Dreams", and Anne-Marie's "2002" which interpolates lyrics from six different songs. While interpolation can be a creative tool, it is important to properly credit and compensate the original creators to avoid legal issues and ensure ethical practices.

Grande was criticised for cultural appropriation in the song's music video

Ariana Grande's "7 Rings" music video was criticised for cultural appropriation. The video, which features a pastel-obsessed, all-female ensemble, was accused of appropriating Black culture and Japanese culture.

In the video, Grande and her friends are seen in a pink-tinted scene, rapping and singing about their luxurious adventures and "girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble". The song's chorus, "I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it", was criticised for its similarity to Princess Nokia's song "Mine", in which she repeats the lyrics, "It's mine, I bought it". The video also features a house, which some said was a reference to 2 Chainz's Pink Trap House in Atlanta, a safe space for Black people that was also used as a free HIV-testing centre and a family-friendly haunted house.

In addition to the video's evocation of Japanese kawaii, Grande was also criticised for her recent and frequent use of Japanese characters and aesthetics in her promotional imagery. This includes a tattoo written in Kanji characters, which was supposed to mean "seven rings" but was mistranslated and ended up meaning a type of BBQ grill.

Some commentators have grumbled that Grande's "blaccent" and spray tan seemed like part of an old story about white people profiting off of black aesthetics to project a sense of edge without feeling any of the associated struggles. Others have pointed out the double standard in how her work is received, noting that men get to conduct themselves in a similar way in public all the time without facing the same level of criticism.

Grande has since acknowledged the backlash, reposting a message on Instagram that read, "White women talking about their weaves is how we’re gonna solve racism", and then apologising for doing so, writing, "I think her intention was to be like… yay a white person disassociating the negative [stereotype] that is paired with the word 'weave'… however I’m so sorry my response was out of pocket or if it came across the wrong way".

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