The Lonely Island are known for their parodic rap comedy — but their influence on hip-hop has gone further than jokes alone, since they have revealed that they likely inspired a song on Kanye West's 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Speaking on The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, the trio discussed their 2007 Digital Short "Iran So Far," a comedic love song featuring a sample of Aphex Twin's "Avril 14th" (a sketch happens to be Seth Meyers's favourite moment in Saturday Night Live history). Kanye was the musical guest that same week on SNL, so the Lonely Island asked him to rap a guest verse on their song.
West said no, and Andy Samberg recalled West telling him, "That was really good. I'm still glad I didn't do it though." Samberg added, "We thought it was so funny. And then a couple years later, he put out his most-liked album, arguably, and sampled [the same Aphex Twin song] on 'Blame Game.'"
Akiva Schaffer pointed out that "Blame Game" is the exact same basic beat as "Iran So Far." Jorma Taccone, who produced the track, said, "I felt very proud of that, 'cause I made that beat. Granted, it's a very simple beat that's mostly just using a sample, but I was like, 'Ah, I think I influenced Kanye.'"
That influence came at a price, however — $160,000 USD, to be exact, since the Lonely Island neglected to clear their Aphex Twin sample before it aired.
Taccone recalled, "This was the first Digital Short that then NBC tried to sell on iTunes, and then the moment we saw that, I was like, 'Oh no! We didn't clear that sample.' To be fair, I talked to our friend Brian Burton, Danger Mouse, before, who had made stuff on the same label as Aphex. I shouldn't have listened to Brian, because one of the main things he was famous for at the time was stealing samples from the Beatles and just using them on an album. And he was like, 'It's fine! It doesn't matter. Just do it. It won't matter.' And it very much mattered and it became a huge thing."
The Lonely Island all agreed that, despite Kanye's heinous politics these days, they were big fans of his at the time. Hear them discuss "Iran So Far" and "Blame Game" in the episode below.