Christian Mistress is a 70's rock throwback group from Washington and they've carved a pretty solid name for themselves.
Kanye West is a an "artist" who enjoys storming up on stage during award shows, putting out overpriced sneakers and occasionally releasing some music. It's also not really a secret that West either enjoys metal or pretends to enjoy metal.
Not too long ago, Kanye announced he'd be dropping a new album, So Help Me God, and released the artwork for it, Christian Mistress noticed it displayed a glaring resemblance to a symbol in the artwork of their 2009 release, Agony and Opium.
The symbol has since become synonymous with the group. It is in fact a 13th century symbol for the Virgin Mary, so it's not as if Christian Mistress invented it. Still, Christian Mistress vocalist Christine Davis had this to say to the Village Voice about it:
"We were very surprised and disappointed. We just didn't know what to think of it and were worried that our total artistic freedom was being kind of taken away from us in just a moment for a symbol we've used for over seven years now. We worked really hard to create an identity along with that symbol for pretty much the same, I don't know, kind of music that Kanye West was trying to use it for. For us it's just hard to grasp how to approach it." [..]
"We don't want our fans or other people, potential fans, to be confused into thinking that Christian Mistress is unoriginal or dishonest or otherwise copied Kanye West's logo," Davis says.
"Because time will go on and people will forget about the whole reverse-confusion type of situation. We'll end up losing control of our reputation as original artists. And that's just something that's too valuable to just passively say, 'That's OK,' because it's really not OK and he's using the symbol in a manner that will confuse people in the future and now.
"[West is] using it on iTunes, he's using it on places where we also sell our music, and if it's intentional and willful that's hurtful to us and we're just really confused and disappointed, basically."
So what do you think? Did Kanye rip off Christian Mistress or is this all just one giant coincidence?
