Social media is buzzing this week after Diddy jokingly claimed he pays Sting $5,000 a day for sampling The Police’s hit “Every Breath You Take” on the 1997 track “I’ll Be Missing You.”
Of course, it’s not true.
Firstly, Sting sold his entire music catalogue to Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) in early 2022 for a reported $300 million (all figures U.S.). Royalties for more than 600 songs – including “Every Breath You Take” – belong to UMPG.
Diddy tweeted the $5k figure in a reply to an April 5th tweet by Black Millionaires that read: “Diddy reportedly pays $2,000 a day to the artist Sting for sampling his hit song ‘I’ll be Missing you’ dedicated to rapper Biggie Smalls without permission.”
It included a clip from a 2018 appearance by Sting on The Breakfast Club in which Charlamagne tha God asked: “Is it true that Diddy has to pay you two grand a day because he didn’t ask you permission to sample ‘Every Breath You Take?’”
Sting deadpanned “Yeah. For the rest of his life.”
But, the $2,000-a-day figure stemmed from a misreading of an article by Celebrity Net Worth that cited a 2010 claim by Sting’s former business manager that “Every Breath You Take” earns “an average of $2,000 in royalty income for Sting every day.” This is total royalties for the song, not only from the sample in “I’ll Be Missing You.”
Nope. 5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting! ✊ https://t.co/sHdjd0UZEy
— LOVE (@Diddy) April 5, 2023
Diddy, who was then known as Puff Daddy, and Evans released “I’ll Be Missing You” ft. R&B group 112 in 1997, only two months after the murder of Diddy’s fellow Bad Boy Records artist (and Evans’ husband) The Notorious B.I.G.
Rights to sample The Police’s 1983 hit were not secured in advance, leading to legal action by Sting – the sole owner of the song at the time – that resulted in the band’s former frontman reportedly getting 100 percent of publishing royalties from “I’ll Be Missing You.”
Ironically, Sting’s vocals from “Every Breath You Take” are not used on Diddy’s track – only Andy Summers’ guitar riff. (In 2012, Summers told A.V. Club it was “the major rip-off of all time.”)
