Lil Nas X has been accused of ripping off his pregnancy promo art
According to Canadian artist Dana Dentata, Montero is not the father of his viral marketing idea.
Someone is mad at Lil Nas X again, this time for being pregnant. The rapper known as Dana Dentata recently sent a cease and desist letter to Lil Nas X and his team, alleging the artist cribbed ideas from her work for the pregnancy-themed promotional material of his debut album Montero.
In the filing, Dentata’s legal team claims that Lil Nas X’s jokey pregnancy photos announcing his debut album, along with the promotional video that featured him going into labor and “delivering” the record on a hospital bed, was crafted in a style “essentially identical to the ‘Pantychrist’ music video and clearly used the work as its basis.”
In Dentata’s music video for her song “Pantychrist,” the artist is at one point shown in a hospital going into labor (though there involves no actual baby being delivered on-screen). Dentata’s album cover for her album of the same name also features the Canadian singer sporting a mild baby bump, and she announced the “Pantychrist” single with a video of an ultrasound on Instagram.
“Additionally, the sonogram image your client released, as well as the photographs depicting him as pregnant wearing a prosthetic stomach in promotion of Montero, which appears on Instagram and in People Magazine, are also nearly identical and, again, clearly used my client’s works as their basis,” the cease and desist letter reads, in part.
The accusations appear flimsy at best — aside from the idea of pregnancy and going into labor, a concept that is far from distinct, there are no discernible similarities that could reasonably construe Lil Nas X’s material as a deliberate rip-off. Previously, Lil Nas X has stated that the idea for the pregnancy concept came while listening to Megan Thee Stallion’s verse on his own song “Dolla Sign Slime” from the album, though he never specifies what specific lines served as inspiration.
"I was like, 'Oh my God, this is amazing,' so I immediately called my stylist,” Lil Nas X told People. “She was like, 'Wow, this all comes together. Your album. Your baby.' I was like, 'Yeah, this is my baby, huh?' As a joke, she was like, 'Yeah, you should do a pregnancy shoot.' I was like, 'You know what? That's actually brilliant.’”
Dentata’s accusations are the latest in a string of “controversies” that strike like clockwork for Lil Nas X every few months. Few, though, can weaponize outside ire to his own advantage like him — Dentata couldn’t even take her baby trouble with Lil Nas X to Maury if she’d wanted to.
