Welcome, it’s great to have you on my site! My name is Louis Woodmill, I am a composer and music producer.
In 2016 I was wondering if it would be possible to mix dancehall tracks with old songs from blues, country and more. So I was looking for a track that didn’t have so much rhythm so I could mix it with a dancehall beat. I came across the song “Landslide,” which had been composed by the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, and played in this version by the Dixie Chicks. Then I set out to find a dancehall song that might fit the key and tempo. Oh my God, I thought, finding a needle in a haystack isn’t much harder!
I scoured my daughter’s dancehall playlist, who was listening to a lot of dancehall music at the time, which was probably why I came up with the idea in the first place. Pretty soon a track popped up, “Miss Fatty” by Million Stylez, and I felt like that track would fit well with “Landslide”. I then put these two tracks together and was amazed that the vocals fit perfectly together, especially in the chorus. And since I needed a name for both this first mashup and this new adventure, I called them both “Fatty’s Landslide.”
Then I created a new account on Soundcloud and uploaded my mashup …
The bug bit me, I was suddenly in the mood to create more of these mashups, this was the start of something new and led to some amazing stories. For example, there was a mashup with two songs that perfectly ran together from start to finish, I didn’t need to cut anything, the tempo was almost identical, one track was a whole note higher, but that was not weird at all. Unfortunately my mashup hit a wall: When trying to upload it to Soundcloud, the track was detected by an upload filter.
I didn’t expect that, because Soundcloud is a popular platform for remixes, DJ sets and many other musical things. Should I ask the Mavericks? How would they react if I even found a way to contact them?
I click YES.
Soundcloud wants to know from me: tell us who made the track you uploaded.
“Dance Jah” is:
My creation, but I used tracks from other artists (e.g., in a DJ mix, mashup, radio show, or podcast).
I click on this. And get the following selection:
You may upload “Dance Jah” because:
- I have written permission from all relevant rights holders
- The original work is not protected by copyright
- My version is an official release, authorised by the copyright owner.
- Some other reason
The first three reasons are not true, remains only: Some other reason …
Invalid and insufficient reasons…
Then something else happened. Five months ago I recorded additional drum tracks for the “Fatty’s Landslide” mashup, it sounds a lot more groovy now, but ultimately Soundcloud’s upload filters caught up and blocked the Chicks track.
Let no one tell that the freedom of art has passed away in music …