I speak often about forgiveness and how it is the path to optimal health, prosperity, and wellness.

I must confess that when I first began this post, there was a burning anger within me. I realized that I was still suppressing my own anger over not being paid for my song ideas song ideas was released by Rihanna, Chris Brown, and Mariah Carey.

Let me explain:
In 2007, I started recording my first album as the artist, Princess Dante.  I flew across the country to have my songs recorded with hit makers.  My focus was a song that I was most fond of, called “My Cake”.  It’s  a song about me, calling my self “cake” and comparing my secret “ingredients” to that of a cake. I was in love with the idea, mostly because I designed my first wedding cake with secret, varying  flavors within it. You could not tell which flavor you were getting without cutting into my wedding cake. The same can be said of myself. Before that, the only reference to the word ‘cake’, besides dessert, in hip-pop music, was the slang word “cake” as a reference to MONEY.

Needless to say, I was STOKED about my idea. In fact, I invested over $250,000 in the producing of that particular song, along with another, called “Watch Me Strip” (a song about dancing in a nightclub and showing a different side of me), because I felt they would be the SINGLES for my album. I though that my creation was secure, as I had registered it with SNOCAP, who then claimed the benefit of copyrighting your song upon upload and registration. Well, with that done, I uploaded my song to Myspace.com (mind you, this was 2007), and started promoting away. I thought – with my massive following of over 100k social medial followers, and more than 300k views per month – it was a matter of time before the cash would start raking in. Here is what actually happened:

My songs did very well online, garnering attention and views. Some artists even embedded my video player into their myspace pages, some delivering as much as 34k views per week each – from a few sources. Daily my myspace message generator posted my songs – in video form – onto the message boards of popular artists like Rihanna, Chris Brown, Christina Milian, The Game, and other mega-stars, I felt excited that this would bring something amazing.. and it did…

Fast-forward to 2009. I had decided to shelve my album to reinvent my image, because I didn’t like the direction I was being pushed into. I’m driving down the street, when lo-and-behold I hear Rihanna singing a song.. “CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE..”
I liked the song – who wouldn’t with that kind of money behind it(?)  -but I was instantly – angry… Angry that a big star like Rihanna was singing my song – and I had not been compensated, or even mentioned as a source of inspiration. Worse, I look up the song online, and see that artist, The Dream re-“wrote” the song for Rihanna, an artist who is quoted as saying the good artists know how to copy legally. SMH.

Oh, did I forget to mention that just a few months earlier, her then beau, Chris Brown, released a male-rendition of “Watch Me Strip” called “Strip”? Yes, it happened.

And now, here comes Jay Z calling out “cake” all over his new song.  ARGH!! What a slap in the face… to know you came up with something and receive zero credit while the one who stole it from you takes a bow…. 

How about some credit, some royalties for the ‘lil guys you stepped on to get that success???

I had to perform multiple conflict-resolution hypnosis on myself to release the anger and frustration that I had associated with this incident. I am not perfect. I am still prone to feelings of iniquity, just like anyone else. Thankfully, I have the benefit of natural healing – to allow myself to release the negative feelings associated with the problem – and focus on the solution.

Perhaps there is some situation is which you felt powerless angry, upset, hurt, and unjustified?  When life shows you its toughest side, think higher. It hurts you more to hold onto anger – than to let it go and live another day in peace.   As for me, I have let go of the frustration and am now at peace, knowing that I am still the one that had the original great idea. I can come up with many others.

The one thing I learned is t

To be continued…