The Nietzsche excuse? Kanye West is saying that he did not steal ‘Stronger’ lyrics from songwriter Vincent Peters but rather from German philosopher Nietzsche!
According to Billboard, Peters sued the rapper in 2010 for plagiarizing one of his 2006 songs also entitled ‘Stronger’ and using the same sentence than West's ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger’. Peters claimed he gave a copy of his song to West’s business manager John Monopoly in 2006, which could explain the resemblance.
The federal judge dismissed the claim earlier this year, but an appeal to a higher court, the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, was made and West’s lawyer are now saying that the lyrics derive from a Nietzsche’s maxim.
Peters’ lines are: ’What don’t kill me make me stronger / The more I blow up the more you wronger / You coped [sic] my CD you can feel my hunger / The wait is over couldn’t wait no longer.’
And West’s lyrics are: ‘N-n-now th-th-that don’t kill me / Can only make me stronger / I need you to hurry up now / ‘Cause I can’t wait much longer / I know I got to be right now / ‘Cause I can’t get much wronger / Man I’ve been waitin’ all night now / That’s how long I been on ya.’
In both songs, beside the Nietzsche’s famous quote, ‘stronger’ rhymes with ‘wronger’, and there is also a reference to supermodel Kate Moss, but West’s lawyer is saying this is not enough to support the claim, declaring ‘it would create a dangerously low threshold for establishing copyright protection over otherwise commonplace words and phrases.’
Nietzsche is common place? This sentence at least is… anybody has read it without having heard about Nietzsche! But has Kanye West even read the German philosopher or did he just google a few quotes?
By the way. didn’t West pose as Jesus Christ on the cover of Rolling Stone a few years ago? He should do the antichrist next time, as a true Nietzsche scholar.