For those who love social media, especially those who frequently scroll through TikTok, the melody from the opening of “Strangers,” released in 2015 by Dutch hip-hop group SFB (Strictly Family Business), is probably already familiar. With its catchy beat, the snippet has been widely used as background music for meme videos, situational clips, and those cool transformation or glow-up videos.
However, a claim accusing BTS of “copying” or “stealing” SFB’s song has suddenly resurfaced recently. Specifically, SFB’s “Strangers” and BTS’s “BTS Cypher 4” (Cypher Pt. 4) share the same beat/instrumental in their opening sections. As the information spread, many people heavily criticized BTS, with comments along the lines of, “They keep plagiarizing other people’s sounds, and it’s ridiculous.”
Amid the situation, ARMYs stepped in to clarify what actually happened and defend the group. According to fans, this was actually an incident that took place back in 2016 and is by no means a new allegation. More importantly, the issue was explained and resolved by the parties involved many years ago, with BTS being made clear to have nothing to do with the plagiarism allegation in question.
Specifically, SFB released “Strangers” on November 21, 2015, with production by producer Spanker. Nearly a year later, BTS released “BTS Cypher 4” on October 10, 2016, as part of their “WINGS” album. The track was produced with αмєяι¢αn producers Tricky Stewart, a renowned producer who has worked with Rihanna, Beyoncé, and others, and Pierre Medor.
The two songs did indeed use the same beat/instrumental, but BTS did not steal or plagiarize it. Instead, producer Tricky Stewart was the one who selected an old beat to give to BTS. He was unaware that his collaborator, Spanker, had previously used that beat for SFB. Shortly after “WINGS” was released, Tricky Stewart learned about the overlap and issued a statement taking responsibility.
On October 12, 2016, he publicly apologized on Twitter, explaining that he had chosen the old beat because he thought it suited BTS and had no idea that Spanker had previously released a version using the same beat with SFB in the Netherlands. He also apologized to BTS, Big Hit, and fans for the confusion.
Big Hit Entertainment later issued an official statement in October 2016. The company confirmed that the situation had resulted from a “mistake and ignorance” on the part of a staff member on Tricky Stewart’s team. According to the statement, Tricky Stewart and his management acknowledged full responsibility as the producers involved and promised to resolve the issue in a way that would not affect BTS.
Most importantly, Big Hit emphasized: “BTS has no fault or responsibility in any issue surrounding the track - in fact, they are the victims of the situation.” Clearly, BTS did not deserve to receive the criticism, and both songs have continued to circulate normally without any legal issues.
At this point, ARMYs expressed confusion over why some users were bringing up an issue that had already been resolved in 2016 to fuel criticism against BTS at this time. This has also led to suspicions that some posts reviving the old story may have been driven by negative intentions to damage BTS’s image, rather than simply an interest in the origins of the beat that has gone viral.
For that reason, fans are calling on everyone to look into the full context of the situation before continuing to spread allegations that BTS plagiarized the song. Some of the comments include: "Wait, this false accusation is resurfacing again?? It was already explained that BTS used it as a sample, and the original owner of the song gave their permission", "This is literally an old issue from 2016 that was already explained and resolved. Why are people bringing it up like it just happened?", "BTS did NOT steal that beat. Report these posts making it up", "Please read the full story before accusing them", "They really dug up an 8-year-old issue just to drag BTS again. The timeline matters, people", "Look at the facts before jumping to conclusions. BTS were literally stated to be the victims of the situation, not the ones responsible for it",...
