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Of all sportswear brands, Adidas probably speaks most to the imagination of the average reggae fan (just think of the iconic pictures of Bob Marley playing soccer in a red Adidas tracksuit), something that the brand has eagerly made use of in the past few years by creating an entire range of reggae and Rasta inspired products. However, this is not to the liking of Bunny Wailer, who wants to sue the company for the illegitimate use of his image.
It all has to do with an Adidas T-shirt for which the image of a soccer playing Bunny Wailer has been used without prior permission of the singer (see photo). Even though Adidas initially claimed that they had used the picture believing it concerned an unknown Rastafarian (every serious reggae connoisseur will, however, immediately recognize the picture from, among other things, the album cover of 'Bunny Wailer Sings The Wailers'), after some time they offered Wailer a compensation of 3000$, an amount that was considered insulting by Bunny and was promptly refused.
Wailer demands no less than a 100 million dollars from the sportswear brand, but for him this is about more than just a shirt; as a Rastafarian elder and member of the Rastafari Millennium Council (an organisation founded in 2007 that wants to unite the different houses in the Rasta-movement and whose main goal is to protect the symbolism of what they consider to be the intellectual property of the Rastafarian-movement) it is a thorn in his side that western brands keep exploiting the Rasta symbolism (the lion of Judah, the Ethiopian colours green-yellow-red, …) and the clothing lines Adidas Reggae and Adidas Rasta are, according to him, the perfect example of this.
Will undoubtedly be continued!
Together with Jah Shakespear, one of the founders of Reggae.be, he first started as a critic and a reporter before in the end of 2014 becoming editor in chief. Divides his time between his two passions: music and Haile Selassie.
Mar 12, 2013