For about two weeks, Mike Chapman thought he had a Grammy nomination. A 1982 hit he co-wrote, Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” landed in song of the year hopeful “APT.,” a hit last year for Bruno Mars and BLACKPINK’s Rosé.
“I was very happy, of course,” says the prolific British songwriter. “I love the record. It’s fantastic.”
Two days later, Chapman’s publisher informed him that, while “APT.” may have been up for a Grammy, he was not.
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“It doesn’t make me angry. It doesn’t bother me,” Chapman says from his London home. “I gave up on the Grammys 40 years ago.”
In 1979, Chapman and his collaborator, Nicky Chinn, wrote a song, “Kitty,” for British power-pop band Racey. The duo then reworked it into “Mickey” for Basil, a young singer who made it into an enduring smash. More than 40 years later, “APT.” interpolated its nursery-rhyme chorus to the point that you can’t hear the new song without getting “Mickey” stuck in your head. “I knew it was a huge hit the minute I heard it,” Chinn recalls.
Although Chinn and Chapman authorized the use and are listed as two of the 12 songwriters in the “APT.” credits, they are casualties of a strict Recording Academy rule. Because the “Mickey” portion of “APT.” is not, technically speaking, new, Chinn and Chapman are not eligible for the Grammy, despite receiving royalty payments as the creators of the song’s central hook and feel.
The issue of songwriter credit doesn’t come up much, as almost all Grammy categories reward the performer as opposed to the writer. When it does, the Recording Academy’s rule about interpolating —and sampling — is nuanced. Songs that contain interpolations and samples have been eligible in Grammy songwriting categories since a 2014 rule change. Because song of the year is a songwriter category, the interpolation rule kicks in and leads to quirks like Mars and collaborators such as Philip Lawrence and Christopher Brody Brown being listed as nominees, but not Chinn and Chapman.
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The issue may seem obscure, but it has come up more frequently in recent years, as interpolations have become more prominent in pop music. In addition to “APT.,” Lady Gaga‘s song of the year-nominated “Abracadabra” interpolates Siouxsie and the Banshees‘ 1981 hit “Spellbound,” and Doechii‘s nominated “Anxiety” does the same with Gotye‘s 2011 smash “Somebody That I Used to Know,” which itself sampled Brazilian composer Luis Bonfá’s ’60s instrumental “Seville.” Last year, Shaboozey‘s song of the year nominee “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” interpolated J-Kwon‘s 2004 hip-hop single “Tipsy.”
Justin Shukat, partner and president of music publishing at Primary Wave Music, suggests the reason for the sudden prominence of interpolations has to do with TikTok and Instagram emphasizing familiar and easy-to-remember melodies. “People consume content for under three seconds. What are you hitting, usually, in that time? The hook,” he says. “To gain attention, you need to grab a consumer right away. What better way to do that [than] by putting James Brown‘s ‘I Feel Good’ right in your face? People know that from the second they hear it. If you write a brand-new song, they don’t know that. That is the change.”
Deborah Mance-Gardner, president of DMG Clearances, adds that sampling and interpolating have become a “homage,” and the kinds of artists who might be eligible for Grammy song of the year nominations are “respectfully” clearing source material and paying the original artists. Regarding the Grammys, she says, “It’s sad they don’t get the acknowledgment.”
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The Recording Academy’s position on crediting interpolated works comes down to a simple argument: Song of the year is for new songs from this year, not older songs of yesteryear. “Had I been a Grammy voter back then, I might have campaigned for ‘Mickey,’ because I love that song,” says Evan Bogart, a songwriter and publisher who is co-chair of the academy’s songwriters and composers wing. “But I’m more sympathetic to the fact that ‘Mickey’ hasn’t won a Grammy in its heyday, when that song came out as an original song in the first place.” He adds: “The people creating those new works, the ones making those creative decisions in the studio, are what these awards are intended to honor.”
The Recording Academy could conceivably update the rule, according to Bogart, just as the Grammys once allowed samples and interpolations solely in the best rap song category before changing its policy in 2014. “There’s an involved process,” says Bogart, who serves as CEO of Seeker Music, a publisher and music-rights company that owns a stake in J-Kwon’s original “Tipsy.” “These things are diligently discussed by people all over the industry, who have many different points of view, debated ad nauseam.”
For Amy Birnbaum, senior A&R and artist relations director for publisher Round Hill Music, the debate over Grammys and interpolations comes down to one name: Luis Bonfá. She says that by including Bonfá — a bossa-nova pioneer who was born in Santa Cruz, Brazil, in 1922, and became an accomplished classical guitarist and composer of film soundtrack classics such as 1959’s “Manhã de Carnaval” — as a song of the year nominee for “Anxiety” could help educate Doechii fans about his legacy. “He should be posthumously awarded a Grammy, and his family should be recognized with that honor,” says Birnbaum, whose company represents Bonfá’s catalog outside the U.S. “There is no reason Luis Bonfá should not be recognized the way Doechii should. We want people to celebrate and honor the original copyright holders.”
For Chapman, losing out on the nomination is more personal. “It’s odd, isn’t it?” he says. “The people who gave you the inspiration in the first place are just struck off after the record is made.”
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