Etta James vs Beyonce

It's a jealous old diva versus a young bird-brained diva. I love this fight. Etta James is one of those ballsy old women (along with the one and only Aretha, also a Beyonce hater) who will absolutely not allow any other person to get in the way of her legend after having slaved so hard for it.

If you have been reading the news, I'm sure you're familiar with the case being discussed now. What would you do if you were either one of them?

In the case of Beyonce, she has taken this "promoting" her new movie Cadillac Records just one step too far by choosing to sing a song she obviously did not popularise, for the extremely historical and monumental event that is Barack Obama's Inauguration. Beyonce is a bestselling artiste in her own right. One would imagine that she would select a song out of her own growing catalogue to perform. Actions speak louder than words and this really goes to show that none of her own original recordings would have made the cut for such a special occasion. Eat it!

Others will argue that Etta James has no business bitching about this as neither did she write nor was she the first person to record/perform the song. Fair enough. But Etta James did popularise the song. In fact, most people have no knowledge of any other performers attaching their names to "At Last" prior to and after Etta James.

Usher and Chris Brown often pay tribute to their favourite Michael Jackson songs by performing their own renditions of the very popular "Billy Jean" and "Wanna Be Starting Something" song and dance combos at their concerts and nationally broadcasted award shows. But if either of them ended up on stage at a "historical and monumental event" like the Obama Inuaguration (which I believe Usher was actually performing there as well), they wouldn't be performing anything less than their own originally popularised work and would leave the Michael Jackson stuff to the crazy man himself.

So the moral of the story is: it is always best to stick to your own work. Don't bother giving credit to the plagiarising -- just do your own thing. No one can take that away from you.