Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys has been accused of stealing music and a TikTok dance for her Fortnite emote by artist Lil Boom who described the Twitch streamer as “manipulative” and “disrespectful,” speaking exclusively to Dexerto.
Pokimane is the most popular female streamer on Twitch, and is a juggernaut on social media, boasting millions of subscribers across her YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
In January of this year, Pokimane revealed a custom-made emote for Fortnite featuring a set of moves and music similar to a viral TikTok dance using the song “Already Dead” by rapper Lil Boom, which now features in 1.4 million videos on the app.
TikToker YungNibb came up with a dance that was subsequently used by many of the app’s biggest creators including Addison Rae and Avani Gregg, both of which credited the original creator of the dance.
Avani and Addison weren’t the only huge creators excited by the adorable trend. Fans were ecstatic when streamer Pokimane herself joined TikTok at the end of 2019 and her most popular post to date with 18 million views is her dance to Already Dead.
In the video, Pokimane doesn’t give credit to YungNibb, but comments saying “I know it’s not identical to the original, I wanted to add my own twist to it with different poses,” which would later become the dance featured in the Fortnite emote.
Artist Lil Boom, the original creator of the Already Dead song, has now accused Pokimane of stealing the song and dance and claiming them as her own for profit. Months after the emote was born, he has decided to air his grievances with the streamer publicly, his decision stemming from Pokimane’s recent Discord controversy which he says gave him “PTSD.”
What has Pokimane been accused of?
Lil Boom has made some serious accusations regarding stolen creative content from a person of color, manipulation, and lying. OfflineTV has also since responded.
Lil Boom says that he and YungNibb were not given credit where it was due for their part in influencing Pokimane’s emote music and dance, telling Dexerto, “I personally felt as if she took the hype from the dance challenge to my song Already Dead to capitalize and profit by making her own version and selling it to Epic/Fortnite.”
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Screenshots of conversations with Pokimane show that she claims the song and dance are original and only influenced by the TikTok trend, but that she offered to tag them in comments. While accepting the credit given, Lil Boom and YungNibb felt that it was not enough.
Lil Boom tweeted that he felt manipulated and lied to by Pokimane. He said: “Pokimane has manipulative tactics, She stole my whole song and dance and manipulated me into shutting up…I reached out to them to try and tell my story and was literally ignored about her manipulating and just got belittled.”
https://twitter.com/heyliluchi/status/1333521407561650184?s=20
The musician also told Dexerto that he asked Pokimane for royalties from the money she earned using the song and dance, but was instead offered a “measly $500.”
Lil Boom reaches out to OfflineTV
In recent days, the creator has reached out to OfflineTV member Brodin Plett with the problems above, while also expressing that he was upset Pokimane was a “non-POC stealing from a POC.”
Plett responded to Lil Boom saying that Pokimane is also POC: “she is 85% North African and was born in Morocco.” However, he told Dexerto these comments were taken out of context and a “misunderstanding.”
In response to this, Lil Boom tweeted, “She doesn’t face anything I face every day when I wake up, she isn’t being stereotyped…she has a whole while privilege, @offlinetv f*** you for even trying to say we live the same life because she happened to be born in Africa.”
https://twitter.com/heyliluchi/status/1333520707855265794?s=20
Both Pokimane and Brodin have since claimed that they assumed Lil Boom’s original message was a troll, and that Brodin’s response was “a joke.” Brodin himself informed Dexerto that “We’ve both apologized to each other and I apologized for assuming it was a troll message,” and that the matters had been ‘”resolved.”
However, Boom has since told Dexerto “I have not resolved anything with Brodin,” and maintains that he continues to be manipulated and lied to by both the streamer and OfflineTV.
