US rappers borrow plenty of ad-libs, beats, samples and general ideas off each other, but the latest Reese & Lil Yachty single artwork reached further Down Under for some ‘inspiration.’
Randomly enough, the imagery for Reese & Yachty’s new single ‘Do It’ is pretty much a direct rip-off from Skegss’ 50 Push Ups For A Dollar EP. From the Thrasher-inspired flames to baby blue background, it’s a direct lift that’s caused an unlikely rift that the coastal rock trio definitely weren’t expecting:
As reported by Tone Deaf, an exchange over Instagram saw the band question Reese about his latest artwork. “Why did you steal our artwork? Shit photoshop job,” Skegss wrote. Reese made his viewpoint very clear in his response, saying “1. I don’t know who the fuck you are 2. I don’t design graphic art… Cool story bro.”
To get a little more insight into the debacle, we hit up the artist behind Skegss’ release, Jack Irvine of Space 44. Read what we had to say below. Lil Yachty will be arriving in Australia for Splendour In The Grass this July, so let’s hope that all will be resolved by then and we can listen to ‘Do It’ in harmony:
Tell us how you first discovered the Reese x Lil Yachty artwork, and what was your reaction?
I’m pretty sure I was at a Skegss show and the boys were showing me. I was honestly laughing, it’s hilarious to me how they have just straight up taken the artwork, erased ‘Skegss’ and put their song title and not even changed anything else. And also, it’s a horrible Photoshop edit looks like it was done in Microsoft Paint.
Some people would say that since Skegss logo was inspired by Thrasher, that it makes it okay for Reese & Yachty to take yours. What would be your response to that?
Being inspired by something is completely different to using the exact same logo.
We hear that you’ve actually been in contact with the artist behind ‘On It’ via Instagram DM – how did the conversation go down?
The designer and Reese sent me a few messages. TRXNT (their designer) said that he “didn’t know that was your work, a lot of designers take other designers work as far as song art,” and Reese said “as I’ve said before, I don’t design cover art I just make music… take that up with the people that made it.”
I really think they have no idea about how this all works. I’ve been trying to tell them that you can’t just use other people’s art but that goes completely over their heads.
In an ideal world, how would you like this unexpected beef to be resolved?
As the creator of the artwork, I would be happy if Reese just admitted that he fucked up, and the guy who made this one realises that it’s not okay to steal people’s work. It also wouldn’t be bad to get some cash.
