Ex Battalion management debunks plagiarism allegations vs. Skusta Clee

The camp of Ex Battalion members Skusta Clee and Flow G have vehemently denied allegations that they plagiarized the track "Ddaeng" by K-pop supergroup BTS.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Ex Battalion Music Management clarified that "Deym - 90's Gang," the song in question, used a generic triplet flow, which is "not owned by anyone as they are of public domain."

"Other international artists also used this cadence over the years such as A$AP Rocky and Quavo," it said.

"We would like to point out that the context of these songs is different and 'vibe' is subjective. Parallel thinking among artists do happen and it cannot be avoided," it added.

The management also said that while "Deym - 90's Gang" sounds similar to "Ddaeng," the two tracks are "inherently different."

"The beats-per-minute (bmp) of the two songs differ as one is more or less 6-8 bpm faster than the other. Each of the two songs also use different chord patterns because the producers of the songs are different," it said.

Band manager Mairon Philip Soliman also clarified that Skusta Clee had no participation in the song, which was performed and written by Flow G and produced by Flip D. The track was made to be the promotional soundtrack for the 199x Clothing Line Brand. Skusta Clee’s only participation in this was to model the brand by appearing in the promotional music video, he said.

He added that contrary to the viral hashtag #SkustaCleeGoingToJailParty on Twitter, there will be no jail time involved even if there was a conviction of copyright infringement.

He also denied that Skusta Clee tweeted any sort of statement, claiming that the post was from a dummy account posing as the rapper.

On Tuesday, GMA News Online published a story on the plagiarism allegations that Skusta Clee was facing online. We regret quoting the unverified tweet from the dummy account, and for wrongfully citing that Skusta Clee was part of the song collaboration. We also apologize to the Ex Battalion members for posting the story without waiting for them to air out their side. —JCB, GMA News