The recent release ofChamillionaire's video for "Evening News," has raised a stir in Canada, home to Toronto rapper Seazon, who claims the clip bears a striking resemblance to a video he released last year for his song "The Reporter."
"['Evening News'] aired on BET "Access Granted," and after that I had a lot of people hitting me up saying 'Yo, Chamillionaire jacked your video,'" Seazon told SOHH. "I know Chamillionaire has probably never heard of me, but my video has been all over Much Music and [Canada's] "RapCity." It just recently won a nationwide video competition. It's well known, when it came out it was very innovative." [Watch Seazon's Video for "The Reporter" Here]
Chamillionaire, who like Seazon, also dresses up in white face and uses a TV news set in his clip for "Evening News," denies having any knowledge of the Toronto rapper's video.
"I never heard of it," Chamillionaire said after hearing the allegations. "When "Turn it Up" came out, somebody said I stole that. I don't copy people, I'm a very creative person. I've never had to steal from somebody. If anything, if I know something has already been done I will steer away from it. To have something like mine and he did it before me and I've never heard of it, it means great minds think alike." [Watch Chamillionaire's "Evening News" Here]
While Seazon agreed to allow for the possibility of a coincidence, he argued the likelier scenario was that he'd been jacked.
"Music videos are kind of redundant right now so it's not a shock to have similarities," Seazon admitted, "but when you have a video like mine where it's so creative -- in the video I'm transforming into a white person delivering the news with the makeup, prosthetics and the wig -- there's a split screen where I'm talking to myself, going back and forth doing a dialogue -- all those things? I have to admit the possibility that it might've been a complete coincidence, I'm not going to be ignorant about it, but you have to admit the higher probability of someone jacking the @#!*. It's not like it doesn't happen in the music industry."
Industry methods aside, Chamillionaire held steadfast to his claim he conceived of the video on his own.
"I've always had it in my mind how it was supposed to look, my thing is trying to find a way to pull off what I had visually in my head and paint the picture," Chamillionaire said of his video, where he also plays a Caucasian newscaster. "When you have creative people they don't have to steal nothing. I'm just one of those people I would never do that in my life. I have never [even] stolen a candy bar when I was a little kid."
Seazon's video for 'The Reporter" awarded him a nationwide Yahoo! and Universal Canada-sponsored competition last year, winning him $35,000 and a recording contract with Universal. Chamillionaire is also a Universal artist. While Chamillionaire told SOHH Universal reps in the US applauded him for the groundbreaking video, Seazon says Universal Canada reps advised him to seek legal advice.
Watch Seazon's video
