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Thanks to Megan Thee Stallion just about everyone on the planet agrees the summer of 2019 will forever be known as “Hot Girl Summer,” but it appears a white singer is already trying to capitalize off of the rapper’s meteoric rise.
According to Altpress, this week, singer/songwriter blackbear announced his single “Hot Girl Bummer” would be released, on the very same day that Meg’s latest single, “Hot Girl Summer” with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla Sign debuted on Rolling Stone‘s 100, hip-hop/R&B chart.
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But as soon as bear’s #hotgirlbummer hashtag started trending on Twitter, fans of the rapper, known as Hotties, took issue with a white man so blatantly using the popularity of a Black artist to gain publicity and skew the fun movement towards a predominantly white mainstream audience.
“How much are you paying Megan for gentrifying her slogan?????” one fan asked getting right to the heart of the matter.
“they stealing ur brand sis,” another devotee posted, tagging the entertainer.
What makes this all worse, is that fact that, blackbear responded to the backlash by posting a tweet insisting his song had nothing to do with Megan and was simply using a hashtag that he noticed was popular.
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“this song is not a parody & has nothing to do with the other song” he wrote. “it has to do w the caption trend #hotgirlsummer.”
Someone must have pointed out to him that the caption trend and the rapper are one in the same, because the tweet has since been deleted.
He may have also gotten wind of the fact that Megan is adamant about protecting her intellectual property, and announced last month that she’s already taking the appropriate measures to trademark the catchphrase for merchandise including hoodies, T-shirts and sportswear.
In late July Billboard confirmed the trademark process was filed on July 10th, and the rapper publicly co-signed this report after a Twitter fan asked her about it.
READ MORE: Megan Thee Stallion says she’s in the process of trademarking “Hot Girl Summer”
this wk #hotgirlbummer tweet 4 dm pic.twitter.com/qNlsTotOgn
— blackbear (@iamblackbear) August 19, 2019