NOT POPPIN. Pop Smoke Fans Not Happy About Virgil Abloh’s Album Cover Design

Bashar Barakah Jackson, better known as Pop Smoke, was an up and coming rapper from New York. His life was taken prematurely after being shot twice during a home invasion in a Hollywood Hills home in February of this year. He was 20 years old.

His death touch many fans far and wide, but especially rapper 50 Cent who decided he wanted to executive produce and finish Pop’s up and coming album ‘Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon’, for him. Cue in fashion designer Virgil Abloh, the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s men’s wear collection and the CEO of the popular Off-White fashion brand he founded. Abloh was brought on to design an album cover for the late rapper and let’s just say that no one was satisfied with the turn out:

 

So much so that dozens of fans began creating their own album cover art to show Virgil how it should be done. 50 took to Instagram to post many of the fan art but told the designer “Hey Virgil we need new album art, they ain’t going for this b***. Love ya work let’s get to it.”. Based on that message it seems that the powers that be are giving Abloh another opportunity to deliver. Some contracts, especially those involving aesthetic taste, include a ‘satisfaction condition’ meaning that the other party only has to pay on the condition that they are satisfied with the service. If that was the case here, whomever contracted with Abloh would be released from their obligation to pay him and be free to work with other artist. However, there is no indication that this is the case. Additionally, if fan art was to be used instead of Abloh’s design, Pop’s camp would have to contract with that artist in order to avoid any copyright infringement claims against them.

Should Virgil be given another opportunity to design or should another artist be given a chance?

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