Photographer Claims Drake Copied His ‘Ameriguns’ Series in Music Video
The photographer involved in a heavily scrutinized Balenciaga campaign three years ago has filed a lawsuit against Drake, alleging that the rapper’s music video copied his work and attempted to connect his feud with Kendrick Lamar to the photographer’s role in that controversial fashion shoot.
Acclaimed Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti filed a lawsuit against Drake in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on Wednesday. He accuses the rapper of “willful, brazen and extensive unlawful infringement.”
According to the lawsuit reported by Digital Music News, Galimberti argues that a prominent sequence in Drake’s What Did I Miss? music video is taken directly from a photograph in his 2020 book The Ameriguns which captured proud gun owners and the American tradition to bear arms.
Both Galimberti’s image and the scene in Drake’s music video depict men standing outside houses with firearms arranged in parallel lines around swimming pools. Galimberti points to shots starting around the 14-second mark of the video, which he says reproduce the precise layout of weapons in his photograph. He claims the video replicates his The Ameriguns portrait “down to the very last detail,” including its symbolic elements.
Galimberti states that he first learned of the similarity when people began tagging him online with clips from the rapper’s music video. His legal team then compiled a side-by-side comparison of one of his The Ameriguns images and Drake’s scene with guns displayed beside a pool. The photographer also alleges that Drake intentionally released What Did I Miss? near July 4 to reinforce the themes associated with the work.
Photographer Claims Drake’s Video References Past Balenciaga Backlash
The lawsuit also asserts that Drake attempted to link his dispute with Kendrick Lamar to Galimberti’s involvement in a controversial Balenciaga campaign in 2022. That campaign featured child models holding teddy bears dressed in bondage gear and sparked widespread backlash. Galimberti was blamed for the shoot and told PetaPixel at the time that he received thousands of death threats and feared he might never work again as a photographer.
In court documents, Galimberti says that he was ultimately cleared of those accusations in a defamation case abroad. He argues that Drake drew a deliberate connection between the Balenciaga controversy and What Did I Miss? music video, which references the aftermath of the rapper’s confrontation with Kendrick Lamar. That feud culminated with Lamar calling Drake a “certified pedophile” on the hit track Not Like Us, prompting Drake to sue Universal Music Group for defamation, a case that has since been dismissed.
According to a report by Billboard, the lawsuit claims Drake used imagery from The Ameriguns to imply that he, like Galimberti, would eventually be exonerated of false allegations.
“Plaintiff was ultimately publicly vindicated in a defamation lawsuit abroad related to the false accusations arising from the Balenciaga advertisement,” the court filing states. “Given Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics…calling defendant Graham [Drake’s real name] a pedophile and defendant Graham’s now dismissed defamation lawsuit, on information and belief, defendant Graham sought to imply that he, like plaintiff, would be publicly exonerated.”
Galimberti is seeking financial damages, calling the incident “both an egregious violation of federal law and an affront to plaintiff, his livelihood, his legacy, and to photographers everywhere.”
“[Galimberti]is a serious professional, addressing serious themes,” the lawsuit states. “His work hangs in galleries, museums, graces serious print literature, and his career depends upon the respect and admiration of dealers, collectors, and critics of contemporary and documentary art. By the forced and unauthorized association of his work with the infringing video, the integrity of his work and his reputation as a photographer has been damaged.”
