US rapper takes on Naked and Famous over hit song

The Naked and Famous are embroiled in a spat with a rapper over their hit song Young Blood. Photo / Richard Robinson

An American rapper has lashed out at New Zealand band The Naked and Famous for alleging he "stole" one of their songs.

Machine Gun Kelly, a rapper from Cleveland, extensively samples the Kiwi band's hit Young Blood in his recent single Half Naked And Almost Famous (link contains strong language).

He told Rolling Stone the song was about a "crazy night on tour in Tempe, Arizona where we almost got arrested and ate by coyotes".

The Naked and Famous responded with allegations that Kelly had not asked their permission to use the song.

"This guy... - This 'artist' has never once thanked, acknowledged or even asked our permission to use Young Blood", a post published on their Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook accounts said.

Kelly responded with a tirade of abuse on his Twitter account.

He claimed to have papers proving he had been given the band's permission to use the song.

"The band The Naked and Famous are the ones who cleared the song I sampled. I was paying hommage to them, not stealing, u f****n idiots," he said.

Soon afterward, The Naked and Famous deleted their original post.

The rapper then took to the band's Twitter account to continue challenging them over the allegation.

"Yall deleted your tweet? someone mustve showed u the paperwork of yall APPROVING that sample. Now apologize," he said.

Another post to the band said: "I was actually a huge fan of yours and was paying hommage to yall by making a play off the name to describe my situation."

He has since posted more tweets claiming to have found the paperwork proving the band had approved the song sample.

Management for The Naked and Famous did not respond to calls.