Last year I called K2K the new leaders of the new school because they dared to look outside the little box that is the creativity of contemporary Trinidad Carnival and bring a fresh new, highly stylized look to 21st Century mas. My only real critique of the band however was that the designers took too much from the world of fashion and cinema, that identifying the source was easy and this somehow...devalued the authenticity of the mas, and the creativity of the designers.
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This year K2K has gained a rave reviews for the 2013 offering of ‘The Human Race’ and while many admire the craftsmanship in the design there are those who wonder where exactly did they get these concepts from, and there are those who had an idea a long time ago where the whole concept came from but could not identify the designer or designers.
The release of the Nicki Minaj video ‘Va Va Voom’ over the weekend had bloggers and carnivalist alike asking if K2K‘s mas had somehow been ‘copied’or replicated for the video like the ‘Merry Monarch was for Janet Jackson's 'Escapade' video back in the 80’s. Or were such costumes and headpieces already out there?
As a fan of the group ‘Swedish house Mafia’ I am subscribed to their, youtube channel and knew of the 'Greyhound' video long before K2K launched ‘The Human race’, in the video you can see not only the inspiration for the designs but probably the theme too. Once again the twins have not only in my opinion drew too much from a well of inspiration but have taken so much from one source that in my opinion the thin line between inspiration and plagiarism may have been crossed. Not a good look for those who wish to somehow copyright the intellectual property of Mas in Trinidad.
Anyway my investigations came up with the name of costume designer and stylist Andrea de Araujo and short tour of her web site and resume reveals a good bit of her work has inspired K2K, thus far.
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