Princewill Pius
The Dancehall reggae star Burna Boy has been entrenched in another controversy. The Soke’s singer is alleged to be involved in intellectual property theft. On October 31, 2016, Burna Boy allegedly called a graphic artist Anthony of Insecta Studios and requested that the graphics/animation should create branding and stage animation materials for his next performance. The performance turned out to be at Essence Festival in South Africa.
Actual sketch from Insecta Studio
After the concept document and bill was prepared and sent to Burna Boy, his management stopped picking phone calls and replying emails from Insecta Studio. It was taken that they had decided they are no longer interested in the artwork only for the artists to see an inverted version of the image used as Burna Boy’s Instagram photograph. Not only that, Burna Boy and his management blew up the image and used it as the stage mural for his performance in at Essence Fest held in Durban, South Africa.
Meanwhile, before they stopped communicating with Insecta Studio, Burna Boy’s management had asked that they pay by giving the studio free publicity and show but Insecta studio turned the offer down saying they don’t do pro-bono because they pay bills.
Burna Boy on stage at Essence Fest
As it stands, the sample artwork sent to Burna Boy’s management was used at Essence Festival and it is being fully used for all of Burna Boy’s branding and social media handles.
Insecta Studios is now crying for justice. The elder brother to the studio owner Chukwubuikem took to Twitter to lambast the singer.
Burna Boy is yet to respond to the allegations.
Read their transactions below:
