Allegedly, rapper Kanye West, or at least the Kanye West team, may have stolen some artwork from a metal album cover artist. As reported by Metal Injection, artist Denis Forkas Kostromitin has worked with a variety of bands, providing album cover artwork for acts like Behemoth and Children Of Bodom.
Per Kostromitin’s Instagram account, in a post that went up a few days ago, the artist has claimed that their artwork was allegedly plagiarized in the first few seconds of the rapper’s music video for “Hurricane.” In their Instagram post, Kostromitin claims that rapper Kanye West or the Kanye West team have stolen their 2017 piece Hortus Aureus. In Kostromitin’s post, an image of that piece has been placed side by side next to the image in West’s “Hurricane” video.
Per Kostromitin’s Instagram post:
“Vigilant followers drew attention to this petty theft of my 2017 piece Hortus Aureus in the latest @kanyewest video, Hurricane. I’ve never been contacted by any party involved in the production – it’s just been pirated from the web and re-rendered for the video. Now, I doubt it was Kanye himself who authorized the underhand nonsense but still one would expect at least some measure of ethics, quality control and respect from a popular artist of his renown.”
View this post on Instagram
You can also find the video for the “Hurricane” music video below. The original of Hortus Aureus can be found here. The date associated with Kostromitin’s Hortus Aureus is noted for 2017.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think its coincidence, or something more?
Starting next month, Behemoth will be heading out on tour with Arch Enemy, Napalm Death, and Unto Others. You can find all the tour dates and locations below.
4/16 – Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
4/18 – San Antonio, TX @ The Aztec Theatre
4/19 – Dallas, TX @ Amplified Live
4/21 – St Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live
4/22 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
4/23 – Charlotte. NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte
4/25 – Toronto, ON @ Rebel
4/26 – Montreal, QC @ Mtelus
4/28 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
4/29 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia
4/30 – Worcester, MA @ Palladium
5/2 – Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre
5/4 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
5/7 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
5/9 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
5/10 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
5/11 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
5/13 – Berkeley, CA @ The UC Theatre
5/15 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Hollywood Palladium
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Words by: Michael Pementel
