Ubiquitous human syrup factory Ed Sheeran has resolved one of his current copyright headaches by agreeing to bestow writing credits for his recent #1 smash Shape Of You on Kandi Burruss, Tameka Cottle and producer Kevin Briggs — the minds behind TLC's 1999 hit tune, No Scrubs.
According to the BBC, the circumstances surrounding the actual decision to give credit to the trio are unclear, though comparisons between Shape Of You's verse and No Scrubs' chorus have been plentiful since Sheeran's track first landed earlier this year.
Either way, it's official now; as Pitchfork notes, the song's ASCAP listing formerly only mentioned Sheeran, producer Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid (of Snow Patrol) as its writers, though that's now been updated to include Burruss, Cottle and Briggs.
Shape Of You has sat atop the ARIA chart at #1 for 10 weeks, the same period of time it has held sway over the UK singles chart. However, its success is somewhat tempered by this dispute, as well as two concurrent, still-pending cases about other Sheeran tunes Thinking Out Loud and Photograph.
With Shape Of You's authorship settled, Sheeran is still in the sights of the notoriously litigious Gaye family, who assert strong similarities between Thinking Out Loud and Marvin Gaye's 1973 cut Let's Get It On (itself a co-write with singer-songwriter Ed Townsend), as well as UK songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, who claim Photograph blatantly lifts from their 2009 song Amazing, originally penned for the British edition of The X Factor.
Sheeran was recently in the country to play a brief run of shows in support of new album ÷ (Divide) — including at the Sydney Opera House and Victoria's Hanging Rock — that also resulted in polarised opinions: although he was praised for the Sydney show, the outing at Hanging Rock attracted wide derision from local environmental groups.
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