Hajime Sorayama, the Japanese artist known for his erotic feminine robots, has called out Beyoncé for her apparent appropriation of his work in one the looks in her Renaissance tour.

“Yo @beyonce, You should have asked me ‘officially’ so that I could make much better work for you as like my man @theweeknd,” Sorayama said in a December 11 Instagram post.

The artist shared five images with his post, including one showing Beyoncé on screen at one of the concerts on her 2023 tour and another of what looks to be tour merchandise. Another three remaining images appear to be his artworks that inspired the look.

 

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A post shared by Hajime Sorayama (@hajimesorayamaofficial)

Within just three hours, the post had garnered more than 30,000 likes on Instagram, though comments were divided by supporters of the artist and the supporters of the singer. The majority of comments backing Beyoncé said that both Sorayama and Beyoncé took inspiration from Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis.

“You and whoever made her headpiece clearly drew from the same Metropolis inspo. Doesn’t make anyone a thief, certainly not Beyoncé,” wrote The Vixen, a former contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Another Instagram user, Jared Keith Lee, said he was a fan of Sorayama but noted that visuals from Beyoncé’s tour have been out since May.

“Now you suddenly have a problem with it?” Lee said, also drawing attention to the fact the headpiece worn by Beyoncé is similar to work by French fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler. Sorayama has collaborated with Mugler in the past.

In his post, Sorayama referenced his multiple collaborations with the Canadian singer The Weeknd as far back as 2011 when the artist collaborated with the singer on a music video and designed a line of merchandise for him.

Earlier this year, Sorayama and The Weeknd collaborated on the centerpiece of the singer’s stage design for his After Hours Til Dawn tour in Europe. That centerpiece is a monumental scale version of one of his robots.

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