With today’s plethora of social media platforms, it can be hard to decipher where exactly a piece of art originated. Because of this, many musicians have been accused of using artwork without an artist’s permission. Kanye West and Nas were charged with lifting artwork from a Bay Area producer in 2018. Just a few months ago, Lil Uzi Vert offered to pay money to an artist whose drawing was used as inspiration for his “That Way” cover art. Now, rapper IDK is on the other side of the debate. IDK has called out Netflix for creating a thumbnail that is suspiciously similar to one of his album covers.
IDK took to social media to slam Netflix for the thumbnail from their new series The Innocence Files. The Netflix Original series’ graphic touts a similar look to IDK’s IWASVERYBAD album cover. Addressing Netflix directly, IDK expressed his frustration. “I woke up in the middle of the night to this,” the rapper began. IDK then went on to explain the sentimental meaning behind his original album cover:
“Another big company praying on the creativity of someone who they think doesn’t have a voice and can’t do anything about. Since you all were inspired enough to to use my artwork rom IwasVeryBad, let me explain the origin of where it comes from. The dove on the back of my shoulder represents my mother (RIP) the person that I though had no love for me, the person I thought wanted me to be something outside of what I wanted to be. The person who told me ‘if you ever go to jail, don’t call me b/c I won’t pick up’. When I went to jail, forget my friends who I use to run with, forget any girls or even other family member. She was the only one that had my back during these times. And this artwork was for her.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Kz1XPlaLE/
Read IDK’s full letter to Netflix and The Innocence Files above.
Some of the musicians covered here are Warner Music artists. .
