I love reading about the business of music. How much an artist makes or does not make, is always an interesting topic. Everyone knows that Biggie died in 1997 and Puffy did a tribute song called I’ll Be Missing You. The song was a huge hit which received a Grammy for Best Rap Performance in 1997. The song was originally a Police song which was sung by Sting called Every Breath You Take. The song was written by Sting, whose real name is Gordon Summer. Sting takes 100% credit for writing the song. Every Breath You Take was a huge hit. The song was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks in 1983. Sting was already making a ton of money from the song in 1983. But when Puffy remade the song in 1997, that’s when Sting made the most money.
Since Sting is credited for writing the song, Celebritynetworth.com is reporting that Sting makes $2000 a day from this song. Lets do the math. $2000 x 365 days a year equals $730,000 dollars a year. The song was released in 1997. The year is now 2022. Lets to the math again. 2022-1997 equals 25 years since I’ll Be Missing You was released. $730,000 x 25 years equals $18,250,000 dollars. Wow!!!
According to Celberitynetworth.com, Puffy never asked for permission to use the song which allowed Sting to take %100 of the profits. Now here is when things go wrong. The part that Puffy sampled, Sting didn’t create but took credit for it. This was according to Celberitynetworth.com. Andy Summers and Stewart Copland contributed the guitar riff which was sampled by I’ll Be Missing You. Sting got all the money and Copland and Summers receives nothing. I’ll Be Missing You sold 7 million copies worldwide.
Summers explains how he found out about I’ll Be Missing You, “It was actually my kid, who was 10 at the time, said, ‘Hey dad, there’s some girl on the radio who’s playing you guys!’ I went into his room and listened to his radio, and I was like, This is me, what the fuck is this?” According to this article Summers and Copeland missed out on $18,250,000 dollars. Wow!!
