Beyonce Accused of Ripping Off Italian Pop Star for Billboard 2011 Performance

Beyonce was honored with the Millennium Award at the Billboard Music Awards 2011, but it was her amazing performance of the latest single, “Run the World (Girls)” that got people talking. They’re still talking about it today – just for the different reasons.

Voices online are accusing Beyonce of ripping off another artist for the impressive interactive performance, which, for the first half of the song, had her against a white screen, interactive with various images.

Back in February 2010, Lorella Cuccarini, an Italian singer, actress, dancer and television personality, performed at the 60th Sanremo Music Festival, and her number too included a white screen with which she interacted.

By all means, since Cuccarini did it first, that must mean that Beyonce is stealing from her – and, as Yahoo! Music puts it, she didn’t even bother to acknowledge it in her acceptance speech, in which she did remember to thank the original two members of Destiny’s Child, who got fired.

This could be jumping to conclusions though, even if there are key elements that appear in both performances: the giant angel wings, the troupe of dancers made in the artists’ likeness, the drums, the flock of birds, and so on and so forth.

The best explanation for the similarities is, as is usually the case, the most obvious one: both performances were done by media artist and director Kenzo Digital and the production company Tribe Inc Design.

In a statement to AceShowbiz, Kenzo defends Beyonce by owning up to the fact he let Cuccarini’s performance inspire him.

“If anything, it’s a great example of how great of a performer Beyonce is. It’s just a bare white screen. It’s a technique in video art since the ‘80s in terms of frontal projection and interactive things,” Kenzo says.

“That’s really nothing new. It’s not even a new technology. It’s just an incredibly simple, awesome storytelling device, and with a performer like Beyonce it becomes incredibly powerful,” the artist adds, stressing that it’s Beyonce’s skills and energy that make the performance memorable – and not what’s playing on the screen behind her.

Below are the two performances: watch and compare.

Lorella Cuccarini at the Sanremo Music Festival, 2010



Beyonce at the Billboard Music Awards, 2011