Fredro Starr, rapper, actor and member of influential Queens rap group Onyx, recently sat down with Art of Dialogue and revealed that the group gets royalty checks from Travis Scott‘s “Sicko Mode.”
Scott’s record — which also features Drake, Swae Lee and Big Hawk — samples The Notorious B.I.G.‘s song “Gimme the Loot” from his debut album Ready to Die, which in turn sampled Sticky Fingaz’s voice saying, “What’s mines is mines and what’s yours is mine,” from Onyx’s debut single “Throw Ya Gunz.”
The late Jam Master Jay from the legendary group Run-D.M.C. discovered Onyx and signed them to his JMJ imprint, making him executive producer on their first three albums. “Luckily, Jam Master Jay told Puff Daddy, ‘You gotta pay for that sample, my n—a,’” Fredro said. “So Biggie sampled ‘Throw Ya Gunz’ on ‘Gimme the Loot,’ and Travis Scott sampled Biggie on ‘Sicko Mode.’ So it trickles down. Every time ‘Sicko Mode’ gets a synch license, it comes through my email because my publishing company Universal is on top of their business.”
He added: “‘Sicko Mode’ is at a billion? Astronomical numbers. That’s why the sh– is called Astroworld, this is astronomical sh–,” he said. (In fact, “Sicko Mode” has surpassed 2 billion streams on Spotify alone earlier this year.) “We get a little percent, but a little percent of something astronomical is not bad.”
He also revealed that fellow Onyx member Sticky Fingaz has a “Sicko Mode” plaque and that Onyx influenced acts like Scott and $uicideboy$. “What Travis Scott is doing, all that raging sh–, we started that. … We started slam dancing in hip-hop,” he said after referencing the group’s 1993 single “Slam.”
When it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in December 2018, “Sicko Mode” became Scott’s first No. 1 single on the chart.
