Jay-Z released his 13th solo album 4:44 last Friday and the internet has been lapping it up.

The album contained deeply personal revelations about the rapper’s mom’s sexuality, being unfaithful to his wife Beyoncé and his frosty relationship with Kanye West. The album also contained a mini-tutorial on black empowerment and pointers on how to build generational wealth.

Among the most talked about songs on the album is “Story of OJ”, a song that seems to be the project’s first single. According to Jay-Z:

The Story of OJ’ is really a song about we as a culture, having a plan, how we’re gonna push this forward. We all make money, and then we all lose money, as artists especially. But how, when you have some type of success, to transform that into something bigger

The song samples Nina Simone’s “Four Women” (1966), and veteran Nigerian lyricist Modenine has stirred up controversy by asking for props for sampling the song before Hov did. Modo pointed out that he used the same Nina Simone sample on his own song “My Skin is Black” (2008) and feels aggrieved that he didn’t get recognized at the time, while Jay-Z is getting praised to the high heavens in 2017.

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Ex-Plantashun Boy Blackface commented on Modenine’s post, even going as far as accusing Jay-Z of stealing it from the famed Nigerian rapper. Modo’s close friend and long-time associate Terry tha Rapman also weighed in, going a step further to say Modenine actually did give Jay-Z a CD of his music on his first visit to Nigeria.

Listen to both songs to understand what the commotion is all about.

Jay-Z “Story of OJ”:

Mode Nine: My Skin Is Black

In my opinion, I do not think Modenine is claiming Jay-Z stole the sample idea from him, that’s what Blackface and Terry are alluding to, not Modo. I understand Modo’s claim to be that he executed the idea first and should be acknowledged. While I understand that and empathize with an MC who has been perennially and criminally overlooked by his own community, the problem is that, this time, he’s coming off as being a bit of an attention-seeker trying to ride on the 4:44 wave to make a non-existent point.

Nina Simone isn’t some obscure artist whose catalog was Christopher Columbused by Modenine, she is easily one of the greatest black American singers of all time. She is also one of the most extensively sampled artists especially in hip-hop, rappers such as Lil Wayne, Kanye West and 50 Cent have sampled Nina in the past, and so has Jay-Z. The particular song in question was even sampled by the late Prodigy in 2011 on his song “Stronger”.

If Prodigy had stayed alive for a couple more weeks, I wonder if he too would have had the temerity to make the same claim as Modo. But being that it is counter-intuitive for an artist to ask for credit for another artist using or reusing a sample that belongs to neither of then,  reallyI doubt it.

Since 4:44 got released on Friday, there have been a number of spurious and opportunistic claims like Modo’s – from Gillie Da Kid claiming Jay-Z stole his lyrics “I’ll give you a $1m worth of game for $9.99” from him and Young Buck claiming that his new album 10 Toes Down would have gotten more attention if it wasn’t for Jay-Z grabbing all the headlines. Modenine couldn’t have picked a worse crowd of rappers to belong to on the release of such a historic album, he’ll do well to find his way out.

Furthermore, without proof that he cleared the Nina Simone sample the proper way, Modenine should probably stop throwing stones at Hov from his Lagos-based glass house.