Denis Forkas Kostromitin, a renowned artist for heavy metal album covers including Behemoth, Children of Bodom and Wolves In The Throne Room, among others, has accused Kanye West and his team of plagiarizing his artwork in the opening seconds of West’s video for “Hurricane.” “Vigilant followers drew attention to this petty theft of my 2017 piece Hortus Aureus in the latest [Kanye West] video, Hurricane,” Kostromitin posted. “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.”
Legendary British radio DJ Daniel P. Carter called the alleged plagiarism “Unbelievably rude” in a comment. West has been talked about in rock circles recently largely due to the rapper’s continued collaboration with Marilyn Manson. Slipknot’s Corey Taylor blasted West for releasing his new album exclusively on a device that costs $200. “It’s like releasing all the parts for a car and sending them to people’s houses and going there, you got a free car, now you’ve got to figure out how to build the g*ddamn thing,” Taylor said. “You’re assuming that the audience has the access and same technology that you have but you’re a f*cking moron for doing that. Are you serious? It doesn’t work that way. The thinking that that’s a smart thing to do just shows you how convoluted and off the f*cking property Kanye West really is. When you’ve got that much money and that much people around you telling you exactly what you want to hear, your concept of reality just goes right out the f*cking window.”
Gene Simmons also recently said West is “out of his mind.” “At a certain point, if everybody misbehaves, they get bitchslapped,” Simmons said when asked if comedian Pete Davidson should get a restraining order against West for depicting his kidnapping and beheading in a video for the song, “Easy.” “It’s, like, guy, you’ve got a roof over your head, you’ve got food in your tummy. You can do whatever you want. Get a hobby. That’s better. Leave him alone. Move on. Love your kids. Love the mother of your kids and let her make her own decision. She’s a grown-*ss woman now and she doesn’t need your permission.”
