A mysterious voice message landed in LiFTED’s inbox late Sunday night. ‘Yo yo...I think somehow the Migos jacked my song,’ said Big Spoon, a Hong Kong rapper who has made a ton of great music over the years including a Whoopty remix with Dough-Boy and Young Hsyan.

Intrigued but skeptical, we took a look at Big Spoon’s video showing the similarities, as well as listened to ‘Straightenin’ and ‘Magic Show,’ the two songs in question, a few times to see if they were at all the same. We also talked with Big Spoon about the incident.

“Billy Choi posted a story saying he liked the new Migos song, so I checked it out and was like ‘ Whoa, this sounds like my song,’” said Big Spoon. “I'm not accusing them of stealing, more like posing a question to the public to hear a verdict. The flute melody and the flow is simple, so I can see how it could be two original unrelated ideas. However, when you compare them back to back, it just sounds so similar and I think there are cases of accidental copyright infringement where the original artist can claim a percentage of royalty.”

Take a listen to Big Spoon’s Magic Show [published August 8, 2020]

Now take a listen to Migo’s ‘Straightenin’ [published May 14, 2021]

These songs sound different how they are in the videos. But once you adjust the BPMs and key, which is very easy to do in a program like Ableton, which Big Spoon did in this video, they are extremely similar.

Big Spoon tagged the producer of the track, DJ Dural, in his Instagram stories, but hasn’t heard anything back. When he showed local rappers and friends, including Bohan Phoenix, many gave him the advice to lawyer up.