Yesterday afternoon on its social profiles Tedua (here is our latest interview) published a shot that reminded many of the cover of Only Seeing God When I Come by the Irish artist Sega Bodega (here is our interview).
Many commented under the rapper's post accusing him of having copied that photo, and many also directly tagged Sega Bodega. Kiss Facility also did it, the project of Mayah Alkhateri, partner of Sega Bodega, who commented: «You will never be Sega Bodega».
So yesterday evening Sega Bodega posted the two shots in their stories to show the similarity (in the concept, in the colors, in the pose, in the outfit, in the location) and then concluded: «Anyway, I'm not angry, I'm just amused» .
Given the accusations, Tedua gave his version of events with a comment on his post which we propose in its entirety: «ALT!!! You are really pushing yourself too hard. This post is not a single or album cover. It is not a promotional image for a tour, it will not be printed on billboards and promoted. Nobody earns a euro from this image. That's a BLANK QUOTE. The fact that there is the same location and outfit is precisely because we did not steal and rework the idea, but we actually copied it because we liked to pay tribute to it and annex it to the idea of Paradise. I respect the artist and the photographer. She wasn't put there hoping “no one would notice” on the contrary I naively believed the reference would be appreciated. The photographer told me: “do you like the idea of re-proposing this iconic shot” and I said yes! Look at all the artwork of my albums or the latest tour and you will see that my team has never sinned about originality and doesn't need to steal anything! I worked with La Chapelle and won a Nike campaign with Micalizzi, I know well how this world works. However, I apologize if I didn't immediately mention the ref in the caption but I honestly didn't think about it. I assumed you would notice. I put my face to it, also taking on responsibilities that are not mine but rest assured that no one is profiting from this photo. That day we actually organized a shooting with three tribute shots. 1 to Kanye, 1 to wank and the last to Virgil. Forgive me for the inconvenience, it was not done in bad faith.”
Subsequently, Tedua reported Sega Bodega and its photographer (here you saw him for the shots of Billie Eilish's digital cover) Aidan Zamiri in the photo credits.