Bernard Rollins artwork – Quavos w/ Migos = Stolen Intellectual Property

[This is a companion piece with the release of Subversive Zine #7 – out today September 5th, you can find a free analogue copy in fine joints all around Frederick]

Anyone in the know, knows about Frederick’s own Bernard Rollins. For others in the city, Rollins and his oeuvre of handcrafted hop-hop inflected (and sometimes mashed-up) artwork flies completely under the radar. Nevertheless, Bernard Rollins abides. When he’s not at his full time non-art related gig, he is quietly honing his craft, adding to his already impressive portfolio, which includes album covers for Westside Gunn /Doom, Muggs X Doom, Downtown Dawson and J Berd among others plus tour posters for Action Bronson – this who’s who in the hip-hop underground world of people he’s worked with goes on and on. He’s been featured on a number of stellar blogs (see DJ Booth’s interview on how he created the Westside/Doom collab)  and national media outlets, primarily highlighting his Doom and Action Bronson associations

+ the mashup toys he’s done (Duffman from the Simpsons and Doom, simply irresistible). His instagram handle blew up in the wake of Action Bronson repping him a few years ago, now currently on 20.4K followers it bestows an unofficial “artist/celebrity” status — ironic given that much of the city don’t even know who he is (unkindly I might add that’s the square majority, but I digress).  Just speculating, but I sense he would reject this “celebrity” assignment. Fame in the Andy Warhol hype sense is not his goal.  Creating interesting artwork is.

Lets catch up with Bernard briefly as an interesting development has come to light: a dispute between his corner and Quavos – you know him via the Atlanta trap band Migos.  By the tone of our conversation, Bernard has a rational sense of what he has to do and is approaching this calmly (me, I would be out of my mind and fucking mad as hell – but we aren’t going to stoking more fire than what’s necessary – even though the title would suggest otherwise). Clearly there’s a particular party thats in the wrong and objectively we’re hoping for a proper resolution…for justice’s sake.

SUBVERSIVE: what was that thing with Migos about?

BERNARD ROLLINS: I was doing a lot of graphic designs for this company… and the guy who runs it hit me up and said ‘I got this idea for this graphic, you should make Quavos from Migos, (insert him) with the chef from Ratattoui based on the line from the song “bad and boujee.” I hadn’t listened to the song yet…so I listened to it and I was like, ‘oh I get it’ and now this makes sense and I gear it up and it kinda took off from there. [Rollins instagrams a picture of Quavos and the Ratattoui mouse, tags Quavos]…and then, I don’t know, maybe a month or so later I saw that he made a chain out of it.

SUBVERSIVE: what did he make out of it?

BERNARD ROLLINS: A pendant for his chain. Like an iced out version of my design… Naw, I thought it was insane. But he never credited it or even acknowledged that I did it and that’s kinda shitty to be honest.

 

 

[Subversive note: Quavos paid close to  $275,000 to a jeweler to make an ‘iced’ chain pendant based on Bernard Rollin’s design. However, no credit was given to Rollins, and no compensation for his intellectual property. Below is the actual pendant in question].

 

It is what it is. I thought (it) was cool. I let it be, but it was some time afterwards that he took the design with his clothing line and started making t-shirts.

SUBVERSIVE: What?! Can you take legal action on that?

BERNARD ROLLINS: yeah, I got a cease and desist written up and sent in. I haven’t heard anything back yet though.

SUBVERSIVE: It’s interesting – it’s almost like the people who made some of the original music that hip-hop artists used to sample – those early situations over proper credit and royalty issues at the dawn of hip hop is playing out here in a similar way.

BERNARD ROLLINS: It happens all the time.

SUBVERSIVE: it’s sort of like artwork sampling

BERNARD ROLLINS: (laughs) more like artwork thievery

 

We’re going to temporarily end this here, we’ll be back to update this in 24 hours or less, there’s more to Bernard Rollin’s interview with Subversive + more artwork to display, but right now I’m going out to distribute some Subversive Zine #7’s….

 

To be clear, while this situation is about a year and a half old, starting in April of 2017, what hasn’t been brought to light until now was Quavos’ using the image, again without permission nor compensation, and now making and selling t-shirts on Quavos’ own fashion merchandise line. As of this morning, Quavos’ Yung Rich Nation is no longer offering the t-shirt in question, perhaps as a result of the cease and desist notice — however no word on whether Rollins would be compensated for the sales of the t-shirts from Rollin’s design that have already sold.