Update, 17:03 GMT: Hannah Wants has responded to the controversy surrounding her new track ‘Found The Ground’.

“This will be my first and last comment I’ll make on the subject as I pride myself on professionalism and not engaging in negative bullshit but here’s my response to all of the Internet ridiculousness over the past 48 hours to anyone who wishes to hear the truth as opposed to social media madness…”

“Found The Ground was made around 9 months ago and it’s no secret that the inspiration for the track was Joy O & Boddika – Mercy (VIP). I’ve been supporting Mercy (VIP) on radio, in mixtapes and in my DJ sets since it’s release and I went into the studio to create a piece of music that had a similar impact on the dancefloor. It was never intended to insult or offend.”

“Not one sample of any kind was taken from Mercy (VIP) to create Found The Ground so I’d like to squish the serious and may I add illegal “plagiarism” allegations right here. It is merely bitter controversy and a harder hitting headline for articles.”

“To anyone saying, writing and reporting that Mercy (VIP) and Found The Ground are “identical”… Wow. Are there similarities? Yes. Are they “identical”? Not at all. I could sit here and list the differences bar by bar, sound by sound but I won’t. Anyone with a set of working ears can pick apart the tracks.”

“I could (anyone could!) list literally hundreds of tracks over the years that have; sounded a little, fairly or extremely similar to others, been clearly inspired by others, physically sampled small or large parts of other tracks (both with or without consent), again I could go on and on here but I won’t.”

“Whether you agree or disagree with the any of the above it is subjective to each person but y’know what? It’s music and it’ll never change. Do I humiliate, comment or hate on any of the hundreds of promos I receive each week that have any kind of familiarity to another song? No. I don’t have the time or the will and it’s also not my place to pass judgement on anyone or anything. Let’s put the world and the very real problems into some perspective here? Like really.”

“On an end note; people love a bandwagon, people love to hate, people enjoy trying to pull others down, people chat shit, people seem to get a mad kick out of saying the worst kinda things about other humans they’ve never even met or even have met yet been nice to their face (I’m not sure which one is worse!?)…”

“Unfortunately it’s life but I genuinely rest in the knowledge that 99.9% of the time the people who fall into the above categories never seem to be doing better than you and that’s enough ammo for me to keep me motivated, learning lessons and moving forward.”

“Thanks to my supporters you mean the absolute world and thanks to the people both inside and outside of the industry who have hit me up with kind words. After what can only be described as a fairly stressful day or two I’m off to spend some time with my family.”

Hannah Wants is in hot water this morning after a video revealed that her most recent track ‘Found The Ground’ is suspiciously similar to Boddika and Joy Orbison’s 2012 track ‘Mercy’.

A video posted to Facebook by Patrick Nazemi compares the two tracks side-by-side and he concludes that they are “the same track.”

In the hours since, the track has suspiciously been removed from Datatransmission’s Soundcloud account – who were hosting the track as a premiere – which suggests a certain level of culpability as both Rinse (who were going to release it) and the bass house DJ and producer seem to be distancing themselves from the track.

Interestingly, Chris Lorenzo has admitted in an interview with Thump that he’s behind several of Wants’ chart-topping productions, which means it might have actually been him copying it and not Wants – though there’s no proof he’s behind this particular track.

The internet clearly thinks it’s a copy as Wants’ wiki page has since been updated stating: “Hannah Wants (born Hannah Alicia Smith in 1986[1][2]) is a British DJ and plagiarist from Birmingham.[3]

“Her most commercially successful track to-date Rhymes, which made it to #13 in the UK Charts, was ghost-written by DJ and Producer Chris Lorenzo.

“She also gained infamy for stealing Boddika & Joy Orbison’s “Mercy (Boddika VIP),” and labeling it as her own “Found The Ground” track. A video shared on Facebook on September 11th 2016 highlighted the blatant rip-off.”

Neither Rinse or Wants have spoken about the track’s similarities.