“No More Parties in LA” - Kanye West (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
As often happens when a song features Kendrick Lamar, his verse in Kanye’s “No More Parties in LA” has garnered a lot of praise. Kanye himself calls it "scary" (in a good way, I assume). But make no mistake, there is trouble in these lyrics.
While talking about a "country girl" who is in the process of being seduced by the Hollywood lifestyle, Kendrick says:
"...it's damaging for you, I think
That pussy should only be holding exclusive rights to me, I mean
He flew you in this motherfucker on first class
Even went out his way so you could check in an extra bag
Now you wanna divide the yam like it equate the math?"
What Kendrick is trying to say, I assume, is that because he flew this girl on first class, and helped her check in an extra bag, he should be the only person that she has sex with. An arguably reasonable request, I suppose, if that's what he actually said. But what he actually said is quite different...
Apparently Kendrick Lamar did not pay close attention in his contracts class in law school. I will explain: If entity "A" holds exclusive rights to entity "B" it means that A can acquire the benefit and/or permit others to acquire the benefit of B, but others cannot acquire the benefit of B without A’s permission, and A is free to acquire the benefit of other entities of A’s choosing.
So, here, if that pussy (entity A) holds exclusive rights to him (entity B), as he says it should, that means: (i) that pussy gets to decide whether to have sex with him or not, (ii) no one else can have sex with him without that pussy's permission and (iii) that pussy is free to have sex with any other entity it chooses.
This is a bad deal for Kendrick.
My guess is he just has his terms backward, of course. But it’s better for our purposes to assume he has the concept backward and he always negotiates from this perspective.
So if, let’s say, Tidal approached Kendrick seeking exclusive rights to his next video, Kendrick would say "No deal! You need to be able to have other videos on your service in addition to mine or no one is going to subscribe! That shit don’t add up!" Or, if Kendrick licensed a sample and was given exclusive rights to use a song, he would then feel bound to make music using nothing but samples of that song the rest of his career. “This is making me mad as fuck!” Kendrick would exclaim.
The thing is, exclusive rights is not that complex a concept, but somehow Kendrick has it dead wrong. I’m sorry to say but until he learns how this works, if Kendrick Lamar is acting as his own lawyer, he’s dealing with malpractice.
