--- title: Shia LaBeouf Freestyle Video Ripped Off Our Verses, Rap Crew Says description: The rapper/MC Pri the Honeydark, part of a rap collective called Anomolies, is accusing Shia LaBeouf of copying their song, "Perfectionist" canonical: https://time.com/3940988/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-freestyle-anomalies/ author: Alissa Greenberg article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-30T04:20:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:21:37.618Z og:title: Shia LaBeouf's 'Freestyle' Rap Ripped Off Our Work, MCs Say og:description: Rap group Anomolies accuses Shia LaBeouf of copying their song "Perfectionist" og:url: https://time.com/3940988/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-freestyle-anomalies/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Shia LaBeouf's 'Freestyle' Rap Ripped Off Our Work, MCs Say twitter:description: Rap group Anomolies accuses Shia LaBeouf of copying their song "Perfectionist" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # A Rap Crew Says Shia LaBeouf Ripped Off Their Verses in That Freestyle Video by [Alissa Greenberg](https://time.com/author/alissa-greenberg/) ## Alissa Greenberg Jun 30, 2015 4:20 AM UTC by [Alissa Greenberg](https://time.com/author/alissa-greenberg/) ## Alissa Greenberg Jun 30, 2015 4:20 AM UTC You know [that video](http://time.com/3939440/shia-labeouf-freestyle-rap-video/) of Shia LaBeouf rapping? The one that went viral Sunday, where the _Transformers_ star is shirtless and spitting [what appears to be](http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2015/06/29/shia-labeouf-freestyle-rapping-shirtless-plagiarism/) some pretty smooth freestyle while surrounded by admirers? So does Pri the Honeydark. The MC and music producer, who is part of a rap collective called the Anomolies, took to Instagram late Sunday to accuse LaBeouf of cribbing from her group’s 1999 song, “Perfectionist,” _USA Today_ [reports](http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2015/06/29/shia-labeouf-freestyle-rapping-shirtless-plagiarism/). “You can’t rip songs from my Anomolies crew, recite them in freestyle as your own, then not expect to be called out by ACTUAL MCs!… This is straight disrespect to lyricism,” she wrote. _Entertainment Weekly_ [cites](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/29/shia-labeouf-freestyle-rap) the verse “rare commodity/the quality is what it’s got to be/and my philosophy/ is much farther than what your eyes can see” as having been lifted from the Anomolies track. To be fair, at no point in the freestyle video does LaBeouf present the rap as his own. But this is [far from the first time](http://time.com/6094/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-scandal/) the movie star has been accused of copying the work of others. He most notoriously was found to have adapted his directorial debut—a short film called _Howard Cantour.com_— from Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel _Justin M. Damiano_ without permission or attribution. He then apologized on Twitter by apparently copying and pasting what a four-year-old entry in a Yahoo! Answers forum entitled “Why did Picasso say ‘good artists copy but great artists steal?'” As for whether there’s any plagiarism going on in this instance, we’ll let you be the judge of that. \[[_USA Today_](http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2015/06/29/shia-labeouf-freestyle-rapping-shirtless-plagiarism/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3940988/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-freestyle-anomalies/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3940988/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-freestyle-anomalies/"},"headline":"A Rap Crew Says Shia LaBeouf Ripped Off Their Verses in That Freestyle Video","datePublished":"2015-06-30T04:20:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:21:37.618Z","description":"This is far from the first time the movie star has been accused of copying the work of others","url":"https://time.com/3940988/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-freestyle-anomalies/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","Hollywood","Plagiarism","Hip-Hop"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alissa Greenberg","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alissa-greenberg/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3940988/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-freestyle-anomalies/","name":"A Rap Crew Says Shia LaBeouf Ripped Off Their Verses in That Freestyle Video"}}]}] ```