Yesterday evening, Lorde called out Kanye West and Kid Cudi for allegedly copying her floating box-inspired stage design from her most recent tour for their Kids See Ghosts performance during this past weekend's Camp Flog Gnaw festival. Though the two rappers have yet to respond to the New Zealand singer's comments, the duo's set designer, John McGuire, has provided a new statement via the New York Times.
McGuire, who owns Trask House (the company behind the duo's Kids See Ghosts stage design and the stage design for West's Saint Pablo tour) told the publication in an email that Lorde “wasn’t the first person to use a floating glass box, she won’t be the last. She doesn’t own it, her designer didn’t invent it.” He also added: “Cubes and floating aren’t new to Kanye West, stage design or architecture. A quick google of floating glass box brings up many instances of suspended glass cubes.”
While many on social media acknowledged that Lorde's set design for her Melodrama tour and her 2017 Coachella performance share similarities to the rappers' recent performance, others also noted that Justin Bieber, ASAP Rocky, and Kendrick Lamar have also used floating box-inspired sets for performances too.
Lorde's stage designer, Es Devlin, who collaborated with Lorde on her stage designs for her Coachella performance and her last tour, also acknowledged that the floating stage concept isn't all that original. She told NYT's Joe Coscarelli that “The idea of a floating glass box of course is not in any way new and the geometry precedes all of us. The form finds another layer of resonance in each new context." You can see the rest of her statement in full, below.
