Jay Z is in a bit of trouble with Egyptian songwriters.  Jay’s Timbaland-produced hit “Big Pimpin” is set to take trial over a decade long dispute about the song’s famous flute solo loop.

According to The Hollywood Reporter–

Sixteen years ago, the music producer Tim “Timbaland” Mosley worked with Shawn “Jay Z” Carter on a track for the album, Vol. 3 … Life and Times of S. Carter.
At the recording session, Timbaland grabbed a CD that contained Middle Eastern music he believed to be in the public domain. He found a particularly distinctive Egyptian composition — the kind of song one might expect to be played for a bellydance. Timbaland focused on a particular measure of this song with an amazing flute melody and looped it. Jay Z’s rap (“You know I, thug em, f— em, love em, leave em”) came on top. And so, “Big Pimpin” was created. Rolling Stone Magazine has since called it one of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
When Jay Z’s hit came out, a foreign subsidiary of EMI identified the sample as coming from the Baligh Hamdi composition “Khosara, Khosara” from the 1960 Egyptian film Fata ahlami. EMI claimed rights stemming from a deal with an Egyptian outfit that had made its own agreement with Hamdi’s heirs. Timbaland then paid $100,000 to EMI for rights to use the sample, and that money was supposed to end any dispute. Except it didn’t. The lawsuit, filed in 2007 in California federal court, comes from Osama Ahmed Fahmy, the nephew of Hamdi who is targeting Jay Z, Timbaland, EMI, Universal Music, Paramount Pictures (over a Jay Z documentary), MTV (over a Jay Z special) and others.

There aren’t many details on how much Fahmey is asking for exactly but we can only imagine with a decade long dispute like this, it’s looking like a pretty penny.