Lorde Accuses Kanye West & Kid Cudi Of Stealing Stage Design

Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage

Lorde Accuses Kanye West & Kid Cudi Of Stealing Stage Design

Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage

Lorde has accused Kanye West and Kid Cudi of stealing stage design from her Melodrama world tour. Last night, West and Cudi debuted their Kids See Ghosts live show at Camp Flog Gnaw, and a big part of the production was a giant floating box that they performed from on stage. During Lorde’s Melodrama world tour, Lorde performed in and had dancers in a similar looking box.

In a series of Instagram story posts earlier today, Lorde posted pictures comparing the two of them and ended with a message: “I’m proud of the work I do and it’s flattering when other artists feel inspired by it, to the extent that they choose to try it on themselves,” she wrote. “But don’t steal — not from women or anyone else — not in 2018 or ever.”

Lorde and Kanye West have some history: West reworked her Hunger Games soundtrack song “Yellow Flicker Beat” back in 2014 and they were seen together at during Paris Fashion Week in 2015. Lorde has a history of covering Kanye songs live.

Here’s video footage of the Kids See Ghosts performance:

And here’s video from Lorde’s tour:

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UPDATE: As The New York Times lays out, Lorde’s floating boxes were designed by Es Devlin, who has also worked with Kanye in the past. The Kids See Ghosts box was designed by Trask House. John McGuire (owner of Trask House) told NYT that Lorde “wasn’t the first person to use a floating glass box, she won’t be the last. She doesn’t own it, her designer didn’t invent it,” continuing: “Cubes and floating aren’t new to Kanye West, stage design or architecture. A quick google of floating glass box brings up many instances of suspended glass cubes.”

Devlin also released a statement via her Instagram account showing different floating box stage set-ups from throughout the ages, saying: “The idea of a floating glass box of course is not in any way new and the geometry precedes all of us.” She continued:

I did not design the recent Kids See Ghosts performance: I worked with Lorde on the design for her Coachella performance : I admire both and see no imitation at work here: I think the more interesting point is that both artists, responding to our dis-jointed times, are being drawn to this gesture of the fragile floating room: the world un-moored from gravity : where the rules of civilisation and identity as we have known them may soon no longer apply.

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