Zedd has been branded toxic and s****y by former collaborater Matthew Koma, who alleges that the DJ stole the credit from him for his biggest tracks.
Koma sang on Zedds hit track Spectrum, as well as penning his biggest track, the Grammy award winning Clarity.
However, the 32-year-old musician has lashed out at Zedd, real name Anton Zaslavski, branding the work environment abusive.
Matthew – who is engaged to Hilary Duff – shared a lengthy post on Instagram, reading: In response to years of “What happened with you & Zedd”. I want to finally be transparent about this… its a really sad truth because Im extremely proud of the work he and I did together… unfortunately my good feelings toward those songs have all but disappeared as they were experienced alongside someone so toxic and self-serving that it occupied the space where any happiness could exist.
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Its not that dramatic of a story and it comes down to something simple. S****y people suck and when theyre successful, people are afraid to blow the whistle.
Matthew continued: The blows started small – him giving interviews about the “lyrics he wrote” (I wrote every word and melody) with no mention of my name, not being paid for singing on Spectrum until 2 or 3 years of fighting for a fee, him producing a song I wrote called Suitcase for my album then not allowing me to release it – instead insisting it was released as “ZEDD” with another featured singer or I couldnt have it. I had to wait for 4 years to put a different version out.
Claiming he was not invited to share in the Grammys glory for Clarity, which he originally featured on, Zoma said: Theres a documentary about “The Making of Zedd” (lol) and I was the only collaborator not invited to the premiere or asked to be interviewed for the movie. More or less, I was just brushed under the rug while he took all the credit, which felt confusing because the millions of people who connected to Clarity and those other songs seemed to connect to the lyrics/emotion/melodies I had written. But he deemed his Kick Drum sound the driving force and left me out of all shared credit.
For years I thought maybe it was me, but over time, Id run into other people who worked with him — other writers/singers/producers/DJs/People on his own team… and the sentiment was shared. Hes the worst.
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Zoma finished: I would rather work at Starbucks and clean the toilets than ever experience that abusive dynamic again.
The musicians fiancee and mum to his nine-month-old daughter Banks Hilary commented: This is so important for people who love the music to know. Writers are taken advantage of, ignored, and mistreated. Proud of you for finally speaking up.
DJ Tiesto wrote: So sad to hear this man, youre one of the most talented guys I know! while Bebe Rexha commented: The unfortunate dark side of the music business.
Zedd, 29, has yet to comment.
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