Grant Kirkhope is responsible for a lot of the sounds of my early gaming years. Specifically, those of Banjo-Kazooie. He recently spoke to Eurogamer about the bird and the bear and their unlikely return. So, while Dwayne and I cry into our bowls of cereal, the rest of you Super Mario 64 heads can breathe a sigh of relief not being threatened by the might of the backpacked bubbas. But there’s something else he dropped in that interview that’s worth discussing.
YES, I’M BACK ON THIS ONE. nintendo, CREDIT THE PEOPLE WHO DO THE WORK
Kirkhope was asked by Eurogamer about not being credited for the DK Rap in the Super Mario Bros. Movie and he had this to say:
“It wasn’t really [Illumination’s] decision. It was Nintendo’s. I did have some communication with Nintendo, as I wanted to find out why they didn’t put my name on it. They said we decided that any music that was quoted from the games that we owned, we wouldn’t credit the composers – apart from Koji Kondo. Then they decided anything with a vocal would get credited, so the DK Rap scores there. But then they decided if we also own it, we won’t credit the composers. And that was the final nail in the coffin.”
Why is this even a thing? Why are people who work hard on something having to ask to be credited for their work? Especially for something that has become as iconic as the DK Rap. Nintendo won’t credit the composers, but the vocals get a credit. Unless I’m missing something, and forgive me if I am as I don’t have a degree in music but, don’t you need a composer for the song to exist in the first place? He goes on to say:
“They just plugged in the N64 and sampled it and looped it. There’s no re-recording done, straight out the game. So it’s me playing guitar on it. It’s the lads from Rare doing the [sings] ‘D-K’ thing. They’re all the performers on the track. So they’re all in the movie uncredited.”
This has to stop. There is zero reason to not credit people who work on your stuff. It’s weird enough that Nintendo operates on this strange refusal to even tell us who is working on a game, but once again because I literally just did this but will happily yell about it more, the work done on a game being in a movie does not mean the original work came out of nowhere. The man gave us Banjo-Kazooie classics. Grant and all involved deserve more respect than that. Credit the people who do the work.
The post Grant Kirkhope is Still Leaving Me None for a New Banjo-Kazooie Game but Also, Seriously, Is It Really That Hard to Credit People Who Work on Games? appeared first on VICE.
