The Artist Who Deeply Regretted Denying Weird Al Permission To Use His Song
In the mid-1990s, Weird Al Yankovic approached rapper Coolio and asked to do a parody of his song "Gangsta's Paradise." Coolio said no, but as previously mentioned, there are no copyright laws against parodies. Yankovic released "Amish Paradise" in 1996. Coolio was angry about the parody, but Yahoo reported that he later considered his reaction to be "one of the dumbest things I did in my career." Coolio admitted that his ego got in the way, and once he gave the topic some more thought, he remembered that Michael Jackson gave Yankovic the go-ahead to parody more than one of his songs. If Jackson didn't get angry, then why should he? "I've since apologized to him," Coolio stated when speaking to the Institute of Production & Recording in 2011.
Yankovic's website states that he was initially unaware that Coolio did not give him permission to release "Amish Paradise." When Coolio's record label approved the song, Yankovic did not know that the approval was not coming directly from Coolio. Luckily, the misunderstanding did not lead to a lifetime of ill will between them.
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