Sting Is Paid $2,000 A Day For This Sample

Gen X’ers remember when sampling first exploded in the late ’80s and ’90s. Hip-hop artists were looping the songs we grew up with, blending rock, funk, and pop into something new. But one of the most famous samples of all time came with a price tag that’s still ticking like a meter: Diddy paying Sting $2,000 a day.

It started in 1997. The Notorious B.I.G. had been murdered, and Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs poured his grief into a tribute track, “I’ll Be Missing You.” He lifted the melody and hook straight from The Police’s 1983 hit “Every Breath You Take”—a song Gen X kids slow-danced to at middle-school dances even though the lyrics were more stalker than sentimental.

The tribute struck a chord. It shot to No. 1, won a Grammy, and became one of the defining songs of that year. But here’s the catch: Puffy never asked Sting’s permission beforehand. Lawyers eventually worked it out, but the deal was brutal: $2,000 a day, every day, forever.

For us Gen X’ers, it’s wild perspective. We remember saving allowance money for cassette singles, and here’s Sting, collecting nearly three-quarters of a million dollars a year just because someone borrowed his tune. By now, that adds up to tens of millions.

Sting once joked the royalties “put his kids through college.” Not bad for a song that came out when MTV was still blasting wall-to-wall music videos. Every breath Diddy takes, Sting makes bank. Classic rock meets hip-hop, and the cash register never stops.