Everybody Wanna Profit Off Black Culture, But Who Getting Paid?

I ain't gon lie, some of these AI videos of Quavo and Takeoff's COLORS performance have been funny as hell. And seeing Takeoff's name getting brought back up almost four years after his death is cool too. Even Quavo seems to appreciate it, so I'm not about to sit here and act like the whole trend is disrespectful.

But here's where I got a problem. Come to find out, that original COLORS performance was actually put together by a team of Black creatives. The direction, the cinematography, the set design, all that shit. COLORS itself is a Berlin-based company, but they brought Black people in to create that particular production. So now I'm looking at all these AI videos going viral, and I'm wondering something.

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Who the fuck is getting paid?

Because it's one thing to make a funny video and post it on TikTok. I ain't mad at that. But when you got people building whole websites and charging money for AI recreations of something Black creatives originally made, now we having a different conversation. And before somebody twists what I'm saying, I'm not accusing anybody of stealing money. I don't know what agreements these creatives had or what they're entitled to. That's exactly why I'm asking the question.

This is something I've always had an issue with when it comes to our culture. Black people create some shit, it becomes popular, everybody finds a way to make money off it, and somehow we're supposed to just be happy that the culture is getting recognition. Recognition is cool. But recognition don't pay nobody's bills.

Now, to be fair, the original song reportedly saw its streams jump over 100% because of this trend. That's a positive. More people listening to Takeoff's music is something I can appreciate. But that doesn't necessarily mean everybody who helped create the original moment is benefiting. And I think that's the part we're too comfortable overlooking.

I'm not against AI. I'm not against remixing shit either. Hip-hop was practically built on taking something that already existed and making something new out of it. But when that new creation starts generating money, we gotta be able to have conversations about credit, ownership, and who's entitled to a piece of that.

Because at some point, we gotta stop acting like Black creativity is just something everybody gets to eat off while we stand around happy they liked the meal. I'm all for keeping Takeoff's legacy alive. I just wanna make sure the people who helped create these moments ain't being left out when it's time to benefit from them.