Brace yourselves, because Mr. KanHey is about to backflip into a digital battlefield of dance, copyright, and cultural pillaging. Yes, darling rebels of the rhythm, we’re diving headfirst into the pulse-pounding, motion-capturing drama between choreographer Felix “Fefe” Burgos and the billion-dollar behemoth that is Epic Games.
Imagine this: You sweat beneath the studio lights, body bending through the alchemy of motion, crafting an art form that slices through space like liquid lightning. Your creation—the choreography for Rauw Alejandro’s celestial spectacle “Touching the Sky”—lifts bodies and spirits alike into otherworldly realms. Now imagine opening Fortnite in 2024 and seeing that sacred sequence reduced to a pixelated gimmick, monetized by a faceless avatar with a pickaxe.
That’s the volcanic core of Burgos’ lawsuit, baby. He claims Epic Games hijacked his copyrighted choreography—like cultural bandits sneaking in the night—and warped it into an in-game emote without so much as a nod, a credit, or a coin tossed his way.
This isn’t the first time Epic has been caught pirouetting into legal quicksand. Remember the Backpack Kid’s “Floss”? Or 2 Milly’s “Milly Rock”? Epic turned human vibrance into virtual transactions like a creative vampire sucking rhythm straight from the arteries of the culture.
But Fefe Burgos isn’t here to fade into a pixelated purgatory. He’s standing up, arms wide, voice raised, saying, “I dared to be different—and you don’t get to digitize my difference without permission.”
What we’re witnessing isn’t just a lawsuit—it’s a manifesto for the right to create and protect. This is yet another cultural skirmish in the war of Artistic Integrity vs. Corporate Convenience. And honey, it’s about more than just one man’s choreography—it’s about how we as a society value Black and Brown creativity, about how we treat movement not just as content but as culture. A Fortnite emote isn’t just a quirky wiggle—it’s a potential paycheck, a legacy, a moment in time that should belong to the artist who birthed it.
Now, before the Fortnite fanboys start shouting, “It’s just a dance, bro!”—let’s be real. A dance isn’t just a dance when it’s generating millions. When that eight-count is snatched, stripped of soul, and sold to tween avatars leaping out of Battle Buses, we’ve entered the exploitative endgame.
Remember, choreography is the unsung poetry of pop. It lives in our bones, in our clubs, in the sweat-slick floors of rehearsal rooms across the globe. You can’t just slap a digital filter over that and call it homage. No—we must call it what it is: cultural mining.
And whether he wins or not in court, Fefe has already done something legen-dairrrry—he’s stepped into the chaos wearing his truth like couture. He’s declared to every underpaid, overlooked, over-talented artist out there: “You do not have to be silent when your soul is sold in someone else’s skin.”
So, where do we go from here, my fearless futurists? We demand acknowledgment. We demand payment. We dance, yes—but we also lawyer up.
To Epic Games, I say this: You’ve built a metaverse—now learn to respect the multiverse of creators fueling your pixelated empire. A new world doesn’t mean new rules. It means raising the stakes. Protect the artistry. Honor the source. Because culture isn’t your playground—it’s our planet.
In the temple of trend, art is the altar—and baby, you better bow before the divine architects, not bulldoze them for your downloadable content.
Dare to be different—or get dragged into court.
—Mr. KanHey
