Michael Bolton has taken on hip-hop's crowd sourced lyric engine, Rap Genius. In a rather surprising move, the "When A Man Loves A Woman" singer decided to annotate the song on the site, giving an explanation for how the sample used in the song from Blackjack's "Maybe It's The Power of Love" was cleared for Kanye West, Jay Z & Jay Ivy's "Never Let Me Down" for College Dropout.
Michael Bolton was the frontman for Blackjack, which was only active for two years in 1979 and 1980. They released two albums, Blackjack in 1979 and then Worlds Apart in 1980, which contained "Maybe It's The Power Of Love."
Bolton's annotation should dispel years of anger towards Kanye for his use of the sample, as some saw it as stealing. Bolton was happy to allow Yeezy to use the sample and it was probably the right call in the end because a band that lasted two years found a way to still get press.
Below is what he wrote via Complex:
"When Kanye and Jay-Z's publishing reps reached out to me about clearing this sample, I was surprised and flattered I wrote this song in the early 80s. If you told me back then that 20 years later it would have a second life in the work of two great hip hop artists, I would have called you crazy! Happy as I was, I wanted to make sure that I was cool with the content of the song before giving the go-ahead. So I had them send me the lyrics. I read them, and I thought 'I love this. It's great. What a positive message.' And the song turned out beautifully - I'm totally happy with it"
