With an upcoming Coachella headline and a likely Lollapalooza headline as well, all eyes and ears are on Ariana Grande — but it’s not all flower crowns and rainbows at the moment.
The pop star is taking some serious heat for her latest track “7 Rings.” People are saying it sounds like an assortment of borrowed things and artists aren’t being shy about speaking out.
First up, Princess Nokia is calling Ariana out, very bluntly might we add, for allegedly stealing her track “Mine.” It’s hard to argue with the underground rapper, as Ari’s flow and even the lyrics from “7 Rings” seem to mimic what Nokia already put out. Ariana repeats the lines, “I want it, I got it” — while Nokia’s track goes, “It’s mine, I bought it.” The delivery is dangerously similar.
2 Chainz is calling her out, too. “Tryna figure out if I should Big Draco @arianagrande,” he writes in an Instagram post. Her pink trap house visuals seen in the “7 Rings” music video resemble that of the rapper’s own “Door Swangin” music video. Also, his track “Spend It” rings a familiar bell — “It’s mine, I spend it.”
That’s not all. Soulja Boy believes she swiped “Pretty Boy Swag” for her new track. He’s the third artist to call her out on social media. “Give me my credit,” he writes in a post. “Period.”
Needless to say, Ariana’s crack at trap music isn’t going over too smoothly. The long list of controversies goes on, with claims of cultural appropriation within the lyrics and the aesthetic. She responded in saying, “It’s never my intention to offend anybody.”
Watch and listen below.