Rocawear, the clothing company founded by Jay Z, is facing charges of plagiarism. Noise/techno band Marshstepper pointed out what it said was striking similarities between new Rocawear designs and some pieces in their line of clothing.
Rocawear has a “Hell Raisers” design on some of their T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts. Marshstepper’s JS Aurelius, who also plays guitar in punk band Destruction Unit and co-owns a tape label, took to Facebook to post some photos juxtaposing Marshstepper’s designs with those from Rocawear, and you can definitely see where Aurelius’ accusations come from.
Both shirts feature a skull looking up. The Rocawear one is wearing goggles and something where the skulls ear would be, but otherwise it looks like it may be legitimately the same skull. The fonts look similar. In particular, the Marshstepper logo and the Hell Raisers logo look almost exactly the same.
While we obviously can’t speak to the truth of this situation, the accusations of plagiarism certainly seem justifiable. Now we have to see if anything comes of it from Rocawear’s side of things. For the record, while Jay Z founded Rocawear in 1999, he sold the company in 2007 and according to a statement provided to Fact/a>, he has “no continuing involvement” with the company. So no matter how this plays out, Jay Z is in the clear.
