Ever gone to check your bank account and were absolutely sure that money was missing? That eerie feeling of being robbed blind after putting in all the work? Aretha Franklin was that kind of thief—the type who’d log into your artistic identity like a hacked account and walk away with the very essence you’d spent years curating. You sit there thinking something is uniquely yours, only to turn around and realize someone done hijacked yo’ shit. Aretha had a history of this. She didn’t just cover other people’s songs—she took ownership of them. Ray Charles’ “Drown in My Own Tears” and “Night Time Is the Right Time”? Gone. Ben E. King’s “Don’t Play That Song”? Snatched. Most famously, Otis Redding’s “Respect”—a song he wrote and recorded—became so thoroughly associated with Aretha that the original may as well have been a demo. As Otis himself said, “That girl stole my song.”  And then, of course, there’s Dionne Warwick. Aretha had a complicated relationship with Dionne—part admiration, part competition, part diva-on-diva cold war. Warwick had managed to charm the Copacabana crowd—the gin-and-tonic-sipping white folks that Aretha had long eyed as a coveted audience. And in a move that can only be described as an alpha-female territorial piss, Aretha aimed her sights on one of Dionne’s biggest hits: “I Say a Little Prayer.” The song hadn’t even had time to cool off before Aretha lifted her leg on it.