Pitbull and Kesha’s “Timber” became one of the biggest hits of the mid-2010s, but the road to release wasn’t always smooth.
Musician and singer Muni Long shared the song’s difficult story in a video posted to her TikTok account. It has since gone viral and in it, she alleges that Atlantic Records gave the song to Pitbull without her permission and forced her to rework parts of the song to fit her voice. sing by Kesha.
“I wrote a song, it’s called Timber, they call it favorite. Me and Breyan [the person she wrote the hook, post chorus and bridge with] Had a great time in the studio writing the song,” she began.
Long then shared that the song’s original rapper was Flo Rida and she had no idea how the song got to Pitbull.
“About two weeks before the song came out, they called me, Ben, called me and said ‘Hey, we need you to come cut the vocals.’ In my mind, that means you need my voice on the song,” she continued.
Long said that she noticed some different vocals in the song.
“‘You know, she can’t sing like you so we have to switch to woo. Now we want you to come in and sing the woo part underneath her because your voice is underneath her the whole song. sing, so if you don’t sing woo it will sound different and we need to have the same feeling,'” she recalls being told.
Long shared: “That is the problem I encountered. You want it to feel that way, but you want it to look that way.”
She also revealed that she was not paid despite charging up to $5000 for just one appearance.
That wasn’t the only issue she had with the song as she revealed that Kesha’s mother allegedly made a copyright claim on the song in order to receive a percentage of the publishing rights for the song.
She concluded: “The artist’s mother said she was trying to publish the song and she didn’t write it, not a single word.”
Muni Long reveals Atlantic Records gave Pitbull ‘Timber’ without her permission and made her sing the chorus again because Kesha couldn’t hit the right notes in the song.
She claims they refused to pay her and that Kesha’s mother was trying to get 2% of the song’s publishing money. pic.twitter.com/hVtGZrAwmx
– Pop Flop (@ThePopFlop) December 31, 2024
“Timber” went on to become a major hit and peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2014 and has since been certified Diamond for sales equivalent to 10,000,000 units in the United States.
Since then, Long continued to develop his own solo career and scored hits such as “Hrs Hrs” as well as “Made for Me”.
Tags Kesha, Pitbull