Popular music artist Chance The Rapper is not happy with Fortnite’s use of popular dances as in-game emotes.
The three-time Grammy Award winner took to social media to express his displeasure, calling on Epic Games to not only credit the rappers that came up with the dances, but to also include their music in the game.
There are currently several emotes in Fortnite that contain parts of dances that were originally created by hip-hop artists and rappers, such as the “Shoot” dance made by BlocBoy JT, moves from Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” video, and the “Milly Rock” by 2Milly.
However, these artists are not crediting in the game, and the music that plays in the backdrop when players do these dances are not the original songs, but rather different samples of audio.
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Chance feels that the tremendous amounts of revenue that Fortnite generates by selling these emotes should be shared by those that originally came up with them.
Fortnite should put the actual rap songs behind the dances that make so much money as Emotes. Black creatives created and popularized these dances but never monetized them. Imagine the money people are spending on these Emotes being shared with the artists that made them
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2018
He also feels that the emotes would be greatly improved if the original song was played during the dance, which would obviously also earn the artists more recognition and money.
I also would just rather watch them dance to a real song lol
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2018
I would love to be able to buy Hype and also be purchasing Look Alive or buy “Swipe” and be buying it from both @FortniteGame AND 2Milly https://t.co/eUgKksJzIY
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2018
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BlocBoy JB also tweeted out about the matter and is in agreement with what his fellow rapper had proposed.
Wat You Said We Need Dat Cash @FortniteGame @EAMaddenNFL https://t.co/hFRH0Db1Mx
— BlocBoy JB (@BlocBoy_JB) July 13, 2018
While many understood where Chance was coming from, there was also some negative reactions from those who felt that the use of the phrase “black creatives” was unnecessary, as it injected a racial aspect to the debate.
Among those who replied to Chance were YouTuber ‘OMGItsBirdman’ and OpTic Gaming content creator ‘Hitch.’
They aren’t just taking dances from black people moron lmfaooo just thought you had something https://t.co/dMTyIy5yah
— Anthony (@OMGItsBirdman) July 13, 2018
backpack kid, orange justice kid, electro shuffle girl. i get where you are coming from but it doesn’t have to be a race thing
— davis. (@OpTicHitch) July 13, 2018
It remains to be seen whether Epic Games will do anything to appease these music artists, or whether it will even reply or offer a reaction.
Since the creators of these dances never monetized or copyrighted them, Epic could just choose to not include the original music and continue to do what they’ve been doing, which has proved to be financially fruitful.
