Thomas Dolby: K-Fed Stole My Song

"You can't just take a very well-known piece of music and add your own vitriolic rap over the top of it and get away with it," Dolby told MTV News on Wednesday. "If anybody's going to sing nasty lyrics over my music, it's going to be me." "America's Most Hated," which Federline recently debuted on his MySpace page, actually samples Mobb Deep's "Got It Twisted," which sampled "She Blinded Me With Science."

"Mobb Deep came to me and asked for a license," said Dolby, who was paid a fee and receives royalties for Mobb Deep's song. "We issue licenses all the time, for movies and TV shows and so on. I was aware of the Mobb Deep one, but I certainly never issued a license to Kevin Federline." Dolby caught wind of the expletive-filled song, which begins with the line "This is for the haters," through a fan's posting on his own Web site's forum and made a plea to Federline on his blog.

"I considered turning a blind eye to it other than, as I mentioned on my site, asking him politely to take it down," Dolby said. "But I found out today that it aired on VH1 last week. So it's more than just an MP3 download. It's airing on TV, and there's no question it's taken from the Mobb Deep record. It's like what Vanilla Ice did with 'Ice Ice Baby' [illegally sampling Queen and David Bowie's 'Under Pressure'], although I think Vanilla Ice is a superstar compared to this guy."

Federline's management had no comment on the song but said it was removed from his MySpace page Wednesday. Dolby, meanwhile, has handed the issue over to his lawyers.