Travis Scott has been hit with yet another lawsuit amid the frenzy of suits against him in light of the recent tragedy at Astroworld. The rapper is now being sued by french artist Mickaël Mehala aka Black Childish, who’s claiming Scott used his original artwork for his album Travis La Flame without his permission.
La Flame was meant to be an original compilation album featuring some of Scott’s earlier songs included on some of his first mixtapes like Days Before Rodeo. While the official La Flame album was never released, fans still have come to know the artwork through its repeated use. It’s even been shown on Scott’s YouTube page and Tidal page at certain points.
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Mehala says he sent a picture of the artwork to Scott through Instagram DMs back in 2016 after creating it the year before, but his message went without a response. He eventually saw his piece later that year online when a La Flame project found its way online.
TMZ reports Mehala filed paperwork to obtain a copyright for the work in February 2019. He also claims to have reached out to Travis’ management on numerous occasions, but he didn’t receive a response until 2019 when one of Scott’s attorneys sent him a message. The lawyer said Scott was unaware that the artwork belonged to anybody. The centaur featured prominently in the center of the piece has been removed from most of the streaming outlets with the project, but Mehala still plans to see the artist in court over the issue.
Scott’s attorney Ed McPherson blasted the lawsuit in a statement to the outlet. “This is clearly a frivolous and baseless filing. Anyone with access to the internet can tell you that Travis never released an album named La Flame. The illustration in question was fan-made, and was uploaded to streaming services by those fans, something that any user has the option of doing,” he said, adding: “Streaming services quickly removed it after they realized that certain people were trying to pass this off as a legitimate album cover. We look forward to responding to this case and obtaining a quick dismissal.”
