Kendrick and SZA have been very busy as of late, having just concluded the TDE Championship Tour (from which SZA was sidelined from due to a vocal cord injury), and are now having to deal with a lawsuit against the hip hop power duo.
Filed in February, Liberian artist Lina Iris Viktor claims the duo used her artwork without her permission in the video for their song All The Stars, the first single for the Black Panther Album. She claims TDE reached out to her in 2016 and January of this year regarding the use of the artwork, to which she denied them. She then claims they used a very similar remake anyways, copying the “unique look and feel” of her series titled “Constellations”. The suit states Viktor is entitled to damages and a cut of the song’s profits, claiming her artwork is a partial reason for the song’s success.
All of that leads up to today, as Kendrick and SZA have filed a motion for the suit to see the suit thrown out of court on the basis of “common sense and logic”. The two state that even if the artwork was ripped off in the video, the artist is not entitled to damages because “common sense and logic dictate that the alleged 19 second use of the artwork in the video” is not what generated the popularity and success of the song. They go on to state the success of the song is due to Kendrick’s “worldwide popularity as well as numerous accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize and dozens of Grammys”, as well as the cultural impact of Black Panther itself. The documents were filed today, so the duo may not hear back for a little while, but any updates will be here on TRUE Magazine. Check out the artwork in question here below.
