Diane Warren is the very definition of a songwriting legend.
She's penned some of the best known pop songs in music history, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a 13-time Oscar nominee and has everything from an Emmy to a Grammy to a Golden Globe decorating her mantle.
But not even she can come for Beyoncé and make it out unscathed.
After Queen Bey's new album Renaissance broke the internet over the weekend, Warren attempted to shade the singer with a subtweet that was obviously about her and her new song "Alien Superstar."
Warren wrote:
"How can there be 24 writers on a song?🙄"
Bey's track "Alien Superstar" lists 24 different songwriters because it uses samples of several other songs, including Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" and 90s club anthem "Unique" by Danube Dance and Kim Cooper.
Beyoncé credited all writers on each song, leading to the whopping 24 credits for the song's writing. Simple enough and something Beyoncé is already famous for.
Her 2016 song "Hold Up" famously lists 15 songwriters, including The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, whose parody of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' song "Maps" inspired Beyoncé's song's chorus.
Warren later acknowledged the song's samples in a follow-up tweet, but Bey's fanbase being as large and dedicated as it is, her tweet went instantly viral.
One of the 24 writers of "Alien Superstar," The-Dream, replied to Warren's tweet with a pointed explanation for the huge songwriting roster.
The-Dream wrote:
"You mean how’s does our (Black) culture have so many writers, well it started because we couldn’t afford certain things starting out,so we started sampling and it became an Artform, a major part of the Black Culture (hip hop) in America."
"Had that era not happen who knows."
"U good?"
That pretty much clears it up.
On Twitter, Warren's tweet went over just about as well with everyone else as it did with The-Dream.
Warren later apologized for the tweet, saying she "meant no disrespect."
Some lessons have to be learned the hard way—"don't come for Beyoncé" is one of them.
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