There has been much talk about Beyoncé’s 2011 Billboard Music Award performance. Why? Well, it looks VERY similar to a performance done by Italian pop star Lorella Cuccarini at the 60th Sanremo Music Festival in 2010.
Check out the two performances side by side:
People were furious that Beyoncé “ripped off” the whole show but apparently, it was actually planned that way. In response to the uproar over this performance controversy Beyoncé offered this statement to AOL Music:
“My makeup artist showed me the performance of Lorella Cuccarini a year ago, and it inspired me so much. I then met with the talented people who worked on it. The technology and concept were so genius. Thank God for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring. I never worked so hard on anything in my life as that performance for the Billboard Awards.”
Maybe she meant to say “Damn, YouTube caught me!” Okay, we understand its entertainment. Artist sample and remake music all of the time but can Beyoncé get anymore non-original with this song? A sampled song and a sampled performance? C’mon son! With all the acknowledgements she made during her acceptance speech for the Millennium Award, she just somehow forgot to mention Cuccarini.
Kenzo Digital, who spent a month creating Beyoncé’s interactive video and said, “There are a lot of different inspirations for where our piece came from.”
Still, Beyoncé owed Lorella a mention during her speech. Being inspired is far from just plain old copying.
Source: AP
