Who is Brit Smith, the smaller artist JoJo Siwa allegedly stole Karma from?

By Abby Amoakuh

Published Apr 11, 2024 at 12:40 PM

Reading time: 2 minutes

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Image courtesy of JoJo Siwa and Brit Smith

The plot thickens in the twisty release of JoJo Siwa’s new single ‘Karma’. The Dance Moms alum is currently facing accusations that she reportedly stole the viral track from a smaller singer called Matisse, also known as Brit Smith, who even filmed an unreleased music video for it in 2012! So, let’s take a deeper look at this unfolding mess before us.

Brittany Smith, also recognised as Brit Smith or Matisse, is an American singer, songwriter and dancer. Smith used to be part of the pop duo Brit & Alex with her identical twin sister Alexia until the girl group broke up in 2009. Smith then embarked on a solo career and released her first track ‘Better Than Her’ featuring Akon in 2010.

In 2012, Smith was presented with the song ‘Karma’s a Bitch’, after Miley Cyrus recorded it in 2011 but decided not to release it. Smith reworked the track with rapper and record producer Timbaland and recorded a very 80’s coded music video for it.

The track was intended to be released in her debut solo album, but eventually got scrapped for unknown reasons…

Fast forward to 2024, when the song made its way into the hands of Miss Siwa, who finally gave it its release with the shortened title ‘Karma’. In short, there was no stealing involved. Just a lot of passing around.

Nevertheless, Siwa’s adaptation of the track gave Smith a new wave of popularity and fame, especially after the original music video for Karma resurfaced.

Some even stated that they preferred Smith’s version of Karma.

So, many of these thieving rumours spread because Siwa had also been accused of stealing another song as well. In a resurfaced video from a listening party for Siwa’s new album, the artist introduces a new song called ‘Choose Your Fighter’.

“This song, I want you to listen for a very special ad lib,” the artist said while introducing it. “Cause it is about one of my exes. And I will sure as hell point it out when that ad lib comes—don’t you worry. This next song is called ‘Choose Your Fighter’.”

Fans mistook clips of the video as her talking about ‘Karma’ and thought Siwa was claiming to have written the whole song, rather than just the ad-lip section.

However, others took it as further evidence that Siwa was a thief as it came to light that ‘Choose Your Fighter’ is another unreleased track from a different artist.

Emeline is a queer French singer, songwriter and music artist from Paris.

The song ‘Choose Your Own Fighter’ was quickly revealed to be Emeline’s due to a now-deleted TikTok which was posted in 2022, that the internet naturally managed to get a hold of. At the time, Emeline responded to the concern fans were expressing in her comments, sharing that she was going to make a story time to talk about what’s going on, although she has yet to do so as of 11 April 2024.

Absolutely not. Fans of the singer dug out multiple videos in which Siwa clarifies that she was given Karma and did not write it. So, calm it with the cancellation people.

As for ‘Choose Your Fighter’, it seems like it might just be another unreleased song that Siwa decided to adopt. Given the lack of accusations about theft by the actual artist, Emeline, it seems fair to say that the internet is getting ahead of itself again.