I've heard that positive affirmations are a good thing. Stare into a mirror and tell yourself that you're doing great, dream it 'til it's real, all that jazz. Drake & 21 Savage figured they'd give it a spin to promote their new album, Her Loss but, unfortunately for them, it backfired spectacularly.
See, Drake & 21 Savage reallllllyyyyyy wanted to be on the cover of Voguemagazine to tie in with Her Loss' November 4 release date. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, except for the fact that the magazine apparently didn't feel the same way.
Not to be deterred, Drake and 21 Savage cooked up their own issues of Vogue. They didn't bother to change the actual cover layout, though, aside from slapping their mugs in place of Jennifer Lawrence. Dare to compare the real and fake October 2022 issues below.
Even the quotes are identical, though 21 Savage probably also believes that "You have to be political." Go off and all that.
Drake and 21 Savage's doctored covers never officially made it to newsstands but they were distributed across several cities and accompanied by a series of wheatpaste posters as promotion for Her Loss.
Dream 'til ya make it real, boys.
Or not: on November 8, Vogue publisher Conde Nast / Advance Magazine Publishers Inc filed suit against Drake and 21 Savage over the "counterfeit" magazine cover, according to a court filing, which asserts that the Her Losspromo campaign relied "entirely" on ilicit Vogue branding.
The dynamic duo also captioned their Instagram post of the cover in a way that implied that everything was on the up-and-up: "Thanks @voguemagazine and Anna Wintour for the love and support on this historic moment," their Instagram post said.
“All of this is false," Conde Nast said in its legal complaint. “Defendants’ flippant disregard for Conde Nast’s rights have left it with no choice but to commence this action.”
No one really thought about it at the time, I suppose, but Drake and 21 Savage posted the image of their fake Vogue cover in early October, which should've immediately revealed the charade because the Jennifer Lawrence issue with identical quotes and stories was published a month prior (Vogue publishes its magazines one month early, so October releases in September, November in October, etc.).
According to Conde Nast, it's attempted to "resolve this matter amicably" since October 31 with reps for Drake and 21 Savage but, without any further recompense, it's seeking a minimum of $4 million in damages (or triple the album and magazine profits), additional punitive damages, and immediate caesura of the trademark infringement.
It's bizarre that two of the most famous rappers in the biz would go to all the trouble to fake some magazine cover to promote an album that'd presumably succeed (or fail) regardless of the co-sign but there you have it. Maybe they should've tried House & Garden or World of Interiorsinstead.
Then again, all of the undue press has only drawn more headlines for Her Loss. Is it $4 million dollars-worth of free press for Drake and Mr. Savage? Too early to say.
-Via Highsnobiety
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