Muni Long says Atlantic Records gave Pitbull "Timber" without her permission, made her re-record the chorus when Kesha couldn't hit the right note

Singer and songwriter Muni Long recently came forward with allegations against Atlantic Records, accusing the label of trying to manipulate her. In a recent TikTok video, she shared three separate instances, with the first involving the song Timber by Pitbull and Kesha, released in 2013.

Muni Long elaborated on the situation in her TikTok post, claiming that she wrote Timber's hook, post-chorus, and bridge with Breyan Isaacs. She stated that Atlantic Records loved the song and discussed whether to give it to FloRida before ultimately choosing Pitbull as the artist. Long claimed that she was unaware of this decision but didn't mind.

"First time. I write a song. The song is called Timber. Love it, they fall in love with the record. Me and Breyan had a great time in the studio writing the song. They're like so do you want to give it to Flo (as in FloRida)? Oh my god this is incredible. I don't know what happened the song ended up on Pitbull," she said.

In her video, Muni Long alleged that the record label called her a couple of weeks before the song was scheduled for release and asked her to come to the studio to "cut some vocals." The studio claimed that the singer (presumed to be Kesha) could not hit the high notes, so they wanted Long to re-record her portion to match Kesha's.

While she did not mention Kesha by name, netizens inferred that she was referring to Kesha, who was the featured singer in the released version.

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Muni Long claims Kesha's mother asked for 2% publishing rights on Timber

In her TikTok video, Muni Long elaborated on how she ended up having to re-record some backing vocals for Timber. She claimed that a certain portion of the song was recorded differently from what she had originally written, which she noticed when the studio called her in for the re-recording.

When she asked the record label why this happened, she claimed they said the singer (presumed to be Kesha) could not hit the high notes. Long alleged that the studio wanted her to change the backing vocals to match Kesha's altered version so they could use it underneath Kesha's voice without much difference.

"Two weeks before the song gets ready to come out, they hit me up. Ben, who used to work at Atlantic calls me and says "Hey we need you to come cut some vocals." What does that mean? In my mind, you need my voice on the song. They still haven't said anything. So I go and I'm hearing somebody else's vocals on my song. I'm like "what is this?"" Long said in the video.

Muni Long continued:

"Oh well you know, she couldn't sing it like you so we had her change it to "woo". And now we want you to go in and sing the "woo" underneath her. Because your vocals are underneath her on the hook on the whole song. So if you don't sing the "woo" it's going to sound different. And we need to have the same feel."

Muni Long alleged she did not get paid for the re-recording. She also claimed that she later heard Kesha's mother tried to get a 2% publishing stake in Timber, despite Kesha allegedly not writing a single word of the song.

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This came after Muni Long recently uploaded an Instagram video refusing to write songs for "non-melanated artists" from Atlantic Records.

Long has previously penned songs for many acclaimed artists, including Rihanna, Mary J. Blige, and Ariana Grande. The singer released her fourth studio album, Revenge, in August 2024.