Sometimes even the
most creative and iconic people in the entertainment business make unforgivable
mistakes that we never would have seen coming. Recently, two of Top Dawg Entertainment's (TDE) flagship artists, Kendrick Lamar and SZA, captured the magnifying essence of Africa and fine artistry into one of the soundtracks for Marvel's "Black Panther". The music video to the song "All the Stars" debuted on February 9th , 2018 and is now trending with over 19 million views on YouTube. But, while a majority of the world was riding the #BlackExcellence fan wave, a few of the viewers felt uneasy about some of the content displayed.
On February 12,
2018, Independent News reported accusations of Kendrick Lamar plagiarizing the
artwork of British-Liberian artist Lina Iris Viktor. Viktor is known for her usage of a black, white, and blue
color palette accompanied with 24 karat gold to create minimalist and black
influenced art. It is easy to see how she would have been recruited for this
strongly depicted production, but unfortunately Viktor's permission was not
given to TDE in any way nor is she happy about her surprise contributions. In
fact in an interview with New York Times,
Viktor emphatically explains that this is "an ethical issue, because what
the whole film purports is that it's about black empowerment, African
excellence - that's the whole concept of the story. And at the same time
they're stealing from African artists." Independent News also featured
another article from Okay Africa where,
unware of this scandal, they "noted: 'The work and influence of
British-Liberian artist Lina Iris Viktor can be clearly spotted.'
The conceptual &
performance artist and painter was contacted not once but twice by the DDA on behalf of Marvel & Disney to exhibit
her work for promotion, but she respectfully declined the offers due to their demands
that she "enter into an exclusive license for the proposed artworks,
thereby forgoing all artistic control" according to The Economic Times. For some, the principle is
more valuable than the compensation. The artwork is said to be a milestone for
Viktor's career. Not only is she bold with her presentation, she is not one to
let up on her moral status explaining that "cultural appropriation is
something that continually happens to African-American artists, and I want to
make a stand."
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| Kendrick Lamar, SZA - "All the Stars" Video by KendrickLamarVEVO |
A 19-second segment (starting at the 2:59 mark) “that
incorporates not just the immediately-identifiable and unique look of her work,
but also many of the specific copyrightable elements in the ‘Constellations’
series of paintings, including stylized motifs of mythical animals, gilded
geometric forms on a black background, and distinctively textured areas and
patterns, arrayed in a grid-like arrangement of forms.
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