New York City punk hardcore punk band Sick of It All accused Supreme and hip-hop group Mobb Deep of infringing on its trademarked logo with a line of T-shirts launched this summer. That’s according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the band by Bush Baby Zamagate Inc.—the company that owns Sick of It All’s intellectual property—against Chapter 4 Corp., owner of Supreme; Kejuan Muchita, Inc., the corporate entity and given name of Mobb Deep co-founder Havoc; and the estate of late Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy (Albert Jackson Johnson), who died in 2017.
Supreme parent company VF Corp. was not named in the suit.
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The lawsuit alleges that a dragon logo used by Mobb Deep and featured on a line of T-shirts sold by Supreme is “virtually identical” to the logo used since 1987 by Sick of It All, whose video for “Step Down” was featured in a 1995 “Beavis and Butt-head” episode.
“This case arises out of defendants’ improper and illegal use of a nearly identical logo mark to plaintiff’s inherently distinctive, incontestable and famous logo,” the suit said. “Defendants’ adoption and use of their knockoff logo … is not just reckless and inexplicable — it is willful infringement and unfair competition.”
According to the suit, this isn’t the first time Sick of It All demanded Mobb Deep stop using the dragon logo. The first complaint came in 1997, followed by a cease-and-desist sent by the band in 2003 after the logo was used on an insert in Mobb Deep’s Free Agents: The Murda Mixtape album.
When the Mobb Deep x Supreme collection hit stores in June, the fashion and cultural platform Hypebeast explained the genesis of the logo—dubbed the “Alleyway Crew” dragon—as being borrowed from Sick of It All, which like Mobb Deep, hails from Queens, New York. The article states that the dragon graphic also was used on one of Supreme’s SS23 collection five-panel hats. Tees from their collab are listed for $50 to $100 on resale and streetwear platforms such as Goat, StockX and Stadium Goods.
Sick of It All’s suit seeks to block Mobb Deep and Supreme from using or profiting from the logo, as well as asking the defendants to pay compensatory damages to the punk band.
Supreme and Mobb Deep have yet to respond to request for comment.
