As soon at Rihanna’s new colorful, sassy video for “Rude Boy” hit the Internet, fans and music lovers (haters) couldn’t help but compare it to M.I.A.’s video for “Boyz.” However, that reaction isn’t one that the star or the video’s director, Melina Matsoukas, had even considered while they were shooting the clip.
“I mean, you know that the video lends from a lot of Rasta culture and ’80s Atari vibe and that’s what we went with too,” Matsoukas said. “And then afterward I was like, ‘Oh, this sucks. They tore down my video.’ And her video’s great too. It definitely wasn’t trying to rip anybody off at all — it was just our approach and the animation stuff, it had a similar vibe. We’ve seen that before with Grace Jones and Andy Warhol, so I don’t know if anybody can lay claim to anything. We’re all inspired by similar elements and it came together in that way.”
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