Nicki Minaj Accused Of Stealing Viral TikTok Dance For Tour, Choreographer Claims His Attempt At Receiving Credit Has Been ‘Rejected’

Nicki Minaj, Donté Colley

Nicki Minaj Accused Of Stealing Viral TikTok Dance For Tour, Choreographer Claims His Attempt At Receiving Credit Has Been ‘Rejected’

Drama has officially found its way to Nicki Minaj’s tour.

The 12-time Grammy-nominated rapper recently kicked off her “Pink Friday 2 World Tour” on March 1 at the Oakland Arena. Of course, concertgoers didn’t take long to share footage from the highly-anticipated event on social media. One now-controversial moment showed Nicki Minaj on stage dancing alongside dancers to her song “FTCU.” As the clip made its rounds online, people quickly noticed a section from the dance routine looked oddly familiar to that of a viral dance from TikTok by professional dancer/choreographer Donté Colley.

Donté Colley

Donté Colley soon came forward, confirming that the moves were his and, unfortunately, he was never properly compensated for his work. In a video shared with his 1.3 million TikTok followers, he said,

“Thank you so much to those of you that shared and tagged me in this. …So, I was reached out to by a member of [Nicki Minaj’s] team, and I wasn’t after payment for this. I was just looking for an opportunity to potentially collaborate and receive credit, and neither one of those options seemed possible and have been rejected.”

@dontecolley

#stitch with @yen ???: *???:*

? original sound – dontecolley

However, Nicki Minaj’s camp has a different version of events. Casper Smart, the creative director of the tour, took to Twitter on March 3 and said,

“Please STOP spreading false narratives. We offered to pay him as a choreographer even though it was less than 10 seconds of choreo that we altered. ALSO offered him tix to his hometown w/ a meet a greet. He declined all this & demanded a shoutout and to get dance on stage w/ her!”

When someone asked why not just hire Donté Colley to dance on stage because they’re using his dance moves, Casper Smart followed up with,

“Because he is NOT booked as a dancer. Just like all 8 choreographers do NOT get to go on stage & dance w/ her. So have him run on stage & dance for exactly 5 seconds then run off? Get wardrobe for him to match? Dance, lighting, video, fx, staging has been rehearsed for months.”

Many did not like Casper Smart’s response and continued to call out the “Starships” artist for seemingly allowing her team to take from another creative. Donté Colley also made a follow-up video to address what he was allegedly offered for his work and said,

“Let me just set the record straight here, I did not decline any concert tickets. I didn’t decline the opportunity for a meet and greet. I didn’t demand, I asked for the opportunity to perform on stage, and that wasn’t a possibility so we moved on. I was offered an amount that was under $100 and I was told that $2000 was for a song and I would be pro-rated an amount for an 8-count. I would never consider selling my work for that amount.”

He added, noting that Nicki touched on the issue in a previous tweet,

“I really appreciate Nicki tweeting, saying that she wanted to make things right. However, the person that she has put in charge has not made this a positive experience, and all I asked for was for her to repost the original video and to tag me, just like the other videos. And if that’s not possible, to just remove the choreo.”

@dontecolley

? original sound – dontecolley

What are your thoughts on this entire situation? Do you think Nicki Minaj’s team dropped the ball on this? Tell us in the comments below!