Dua Lipa, her Sailor Moon "Levitating" video, and that time she didn't credit the artists who may have ended up inspiring the video

So, I guess Dua Lipa saw some sense, finally, and chose to release a visual to the album version of "Levitating". The version of the song that every-fucking-body liked from the get-go. Yet she chose to keep giving us trash remixes that nobody wanted. But let's be real about why "Levitating" has a video now. She wants less views on the "Levitating" music video which features DaBaby after his ignorant ass AIDS comments. Although if she was really about stopping his bag and genuinely cared, a bitch would set that video to private and removed the version of "Levitating" which featuring him from streaming services. This was a clear lesson of how jumping on a trend for the sake of jumping on a trend can bit you in the ass when said ass doesn't do research. 'Cos DaBaby has been problematic long before.

HENNYWAY.

That's one mess concerning the song, and I'm here to highlight another. Because what really caught my attention about the "Levitating" music video is the look.

Now, Dua Lipa doing an animated video is not unique or special. "Physical" had a lil' anime segment, and she had released a Cuphead looking-ass animated video for "Hallucinate". But what took me aback with the "Levitating" music video was the style, which is very classic daytime 90s anime, with clear references to Sailor Moon. Which is fine. 90s anime is fucking great and a whole entire vibe. Many artists have hearkened back to it for music videos. Daft Punk famously did so. And Sailor Moon was always popular, but has became an Internet sensation thanks to meme culture. But in spite of all of this, the moment I saw Dua in a 90s anime recreation of her album cover in the music video, I thought of this amazing piece of Future Nostalgia artwork that did the rounds online around the time Future Nostalgia first released.

Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia | by hanavbara

Now, of course, the Duolingo in the music video and the Dua in this piece of art do not look EXACTLY the same. But I can't not wonder if this art was part of the inspiration behind the music video. Especially as Dua Lipa had tweeted about Future Nostalgia with this exact artwork way back in April of 2020, and the artists (hanavbara is a duo) responsible for the artwork bases all of their work somewhat on the style of Sailor Moon. It's their thing.

But Dua tweeting this artwork came with its own controversy, because Dua did not tag the artists whose tag is right there on the image, and they're on Twitter with that same tag. And when Dua made the same post on her Insta story, the artists' name was cropped out. And to make it worse, both posts were to promote her album being on sale. 

The artists, very rightly so, called Dua Lipa out.

after some thinking i think we need to speak up about it. yesterday @dualipa posted our fanart to promote her album, without credit, on insta&twitter. first of all i want to say im not saying this for people to hate on her, i absolutely love her music and it makes me happy that + pic.twitter.com/TOjn1lVIOC

— 🌸 (@hanavbara) April 3, 2020

Some may say that the artist should be grateful. But this is the tweet that hits.

i think the first issue here was to use the image to promote the album without permission and credit. any other work with commercial purpose would have been payed, but they posted it without our permission and even cropping out the name on insta. +

— 🌸 (@hanavbara) April 3, 2020

Dua and / or her team coulda just used the official artwork for Future Nostalgia album, which they really should have. But they thought this artwork was cute and used it instead, with no regards for the creators of it. Dua and her team probabaly thought they're doing the artist a favour, when the favour would have been simply tagging the artist or running them some money; especially at a time when the pandemic was choke slamming everybody. And then to drop a whole music video which has a similar style?

It's sus sis.

So what we can deduce between the DaBaby controversy and this, is that Dua or nobody in her team know how to use Google and plain don't give a fuck. After all, this is the same woman who was throwing parties, flying around the world and doing everything but staying her ass at home in the thick of the pandemic and during lockdown.

🎨 Hanavbara: Official site | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr

💿 Album review: Dua Lipa's second studio album, Future Nostalgia