“Toxic And Self-Serving”: ‘Clarity’ Co-Writer Matthew Koma Unleashes On Zedd
"Shitty people suck, and when they're successful people are afraid to blow the whistle."
Superstar producer Zedd has come under fire from former collaborator Matthew Koma, who alleges that the hitmaker has been claiming credit for his work.
Koma — who co-wrote some of Zedd’s biggest tracks, including ‘Spectrum’ and the Grammy-winning ‘Clarity’ — unleashed on his former partner across his socials earlier today, writing that he was “brushed under the rug while he [Zedd] took all the credit” for the success of their early tracks.
“It’s a really sad truth because I’m extremely proud of the work he and I did together,” Koma wrote in a post across his socials. “Unfortunately my good feelings toward those songs have all but disappeared as they were experienced alongside someone to toxic and self serving that it occupied the space where any happiness could exist.
“The blows started small — him giving interviews about ‘the lyrics he wrote’ (I wrote every word and melody) with no mention of my name…More or less, I was just brushed under the rug while he took all the credit. Which felt confusing because the millions of people who connected to ‘Clarity’ and those other songs, seemed to connect to the lyrics/emotion/melodies I had written. But he deemed his kick drum sound the driving force and left me out of all shared credit.”
He then claims he was not paid for his singing work on ‘Spectrum’, and was prevented from releasing a track he’d written and produced with Zedd because the producer wanted it for his own album. He also points to an instance where Zedd refused to play ‘Clarity’ in any other key but C — apparently because he couldn’t work out how to play it that way.
“I came to find out he could only play piano in the key of C and the keyboard wouldn’t transpose,” Koma writes. “Sort of contradicted the whole ‘genius classical pianist’ persona.”
“For those always wondering why there was never any more music from the two of us, it wasn’t really my choice. Now, he has plenty of people to write his songs and produce his tracks and help him continue on his trajectory.”
He finishes off by writing that he’d rather scrub toilets than “ever experience that abusive dynamic again”.
Read the full post from Koma below. Zedd has yet to respond.