Rapper T-Pain said he “had money in the bank” in the lyrics for his 2007 hit song “Buy U a Drank,” but despite its chart-topping success, he said a quirk of copyright law left him with little to no earnings.

“Publishing-wise, I probably get no money from ‘Buy U a Drank,’” the 38-year-old revealed on a Twitch stream this week.

It was one of his most popular songs. The catchy, flirtatious melody featuring Yung Joc was an instant club banger and hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart. But throughout the song, T-Pain, whose actual name is Faheem Rashad Najm, famously mentions other popular hip-hop songs, including “Walk It Out” by Unk, Lil Scrappy’s “Money in the Bank,” Lil Jon’s “Snap Yo Fingers” and more.

“When ‘Buy U a Drank’ like blew up, blew up, all them people and writers from them other songs [said] they were owed” some of the proceeds, T-Pain explained.

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“They said this is ‘Our money in the bank,’” T-Pain added with a laugh. “I was like paying homage.”

T-Pain ran afoul of copyright laws governing “interpolation,” said entertainment attorney Drew Tawiah, which is when artists take part of an existing musical work and incorporate it into a new song without using any of the audio from the preexisting song. This is different from sampling a song, Tawiah told The Washington Post, but still requires an artist to pay publishing rights.

“There’s two copyrights for every song you hear,” said entertainment attorney Leah Stevenson. “There’s a copyright for the master or sound recording, which the record label or unsigned artist owns, and another one for the publishing or musical composition, which includes anyone who contributes to the lyrics or melody.”

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Because “Buy U a Drank” included lyrical references from at least six other artists, they were entitled to a percentage of the song’s earnings, along with their songwriters and record labels.

“There is value in paying homage because, from a listener standpoint, the audience will be able to pick up and identify with those lyrics. And that could be part of why the song did really well. The only issue is the people who made those other songs want a piece of the percentage,” Tawiah said.

This has happened to other popular artists over the years.

Mark Althavan Andrews, known professionally as Sisqó, released the 1999 hit “Thong Song,” but it’s primarily owned by Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” writer Desmond Child, because Sisqó sings nearly two minutes into the song, “'Cause she was livin’ la vida loca.”

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In the end, it worked out for T-Pain. Fader credits him for making Auto-Tune a fixture of late 2000s music. Following “Buy U a Drank,” the Tallahassee native went on to become one of the most influential artists and producers of the mid-2000s, creating hits including “I’m Sprung” and “Bartender.” From 2008 to 2010, he received 12 Grammy nominations and won two for being featured on Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It” and Kanye West’s “Good Life.” Fifteen of T-Pain’s songs have reached top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

Today, the rapper, who started the label Nappy Boy Entertainment, is an avid gamer on Twitch, has his own drift driving team and was the first winner on Fox’s “The Masked Singer” in 2019.

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