Nicole Zabaleta
Kendrick Lamar, the rapper of the moment, produced the soundtrack of the latest Marvel installment. With this new repertoire, he’s on the top of the Billboard list.
This February 9th they announced to the public “Black Panther: The Album”. It’s estimated it will sell more than 100,000 albums in less than a week. A sure success!
One hit after another
If this prediction turns out to be true, the release will be cataloged to lead the lists of movie songs in 2018 after The Greatest Showman.
The publicity was impelled by the official trailers of the film. It included songs from Vince Staples and Run The Jewel. The complete list was revealed in January with singers who collaborated on this next hit, among which we see SZA, The Weeknd, Jorja Smith, ScHoolboy and many more.
Kendrick Lamar accused of plagiarism
But not everything is rosy for this album because with just one song and one video, a tremendous uproar was formed.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar is accused of plagiarism in his latest music video for this movie.
In his new video, All the Stars is allegedly a copy of British liberal artist Lina Iris Viktor works. A series of images from her series of Constellation paintings.
Lamar under heat
The lawyer for this artist sent a letter to Top Dawg Entertainment over the weekend alleging this plagiarism and demanding copyright from her art. The lawyer argued that: “the artist contacted the creators of the film twice to obtain permission to present her work,” the letter says,” but she decided not to participate” news reported by the New York Times.
“Why would they do this? It is an ethical problem because the whole film is intended that it is black empowerment, African excellence, that’s the whole concept of history. And while they are robbing African artists” Viktor told the New York Times.
The producers of this video declined the request for comments from the Times.
The letter says that at minute 2:59 of the video, there is a segment of 19 seconds “that incorporates not only the immediately identifiable and unique aspect of her work but also many of the specific elements of the copyright of the series of paintings Constellations. Including stylized motifs of mythical animals, golden geometric shapes on a black background, and areas and patterns with distinctive textures arranged in a grid form. “
In the letter, the artist is willing to “discuss a resolution of all their claims. Consisting, as a minimum. In a public apology for unauthorized use and a license fee “
No doubt both the song and the video are fascinating, but plagiarism is not so much. So … we’ll see if the public apology comes true or not.
