After giving an epic performance at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, Logic found his likeness thrown into an unlikely controversy over the weekend (Jan. 27). According to IndieWire, Carolina Salguero — who runs the Mary A. Whelan oil tanker in Brooklyn — is accusing the Grammy-nominated rapper of impersonating a nearby high school student to avoid paying a booking fee for a music video.
Salguero granted Logic and his team permission to shoot a portion of his “Super Mario World” video on the oil tanker, as they allegedly told her it would be for their Glen Cove High School educational project to avoid the typical shooting fee, which ranges from $5,000 to $10,000 for a full day, says IndieWire. The visual ended up being released back in August 2016 and has since accumulated over 10 million views on YouTube.
“I looked at Logic; he’s so scrawny, I mistook for him a high school student,” Carolina Salguero told IndieWire. “I thought the videographer was his dad, graying hair at the temples, and his friend was dressed in the Super Mario costume. I was busy and trusted I was helping high school students.”
When Salguero got wind of the fact Logic happened to be a professional rapper, she requested that his management donate $5,000 to the nonprofit she runs, PortSide. One of the Everybody artist’s managers, Harrison Remler, referred her request to Def Jam in an email obtained by IndieWire from late 2016, “UMG Def Jam, Logic’s label handles all budgets for his video shoot and we can revisit a cost in the new year. Their offices are closed until early January. We are confident we can get some funds your way.”
Almost a full calendar year later and the Brooklyn-based organization still hasn’t been compensated. Billboard has reached out to Def Jam for comment on the situation.