The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2020
Savage X Fenty set a lingerie segment to a hadith recitation — Rihanna apologised
Oct 2020: Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 set a lingerie segment to a track sampling a hadith recitation; four days of backlash later, Rihanna apologised.
Savage X Fenty · 2020-10
What happened
The Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2, Rihanna's second streamed runway presentation for her lingerie label, premiered on Amazon Prime Video on October 2, 2020. One of its soundtrack choices went unnoticed at first: the British artist Coucou Chloe's 2017 track 'Doom', played under a lingerie segment, was built on a sample of a hadith recitation — sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad — performed by Mishary bin Rashid Alafasy, one of the most prominent reciters in the Muslim world. Sacred text had become runway rhythm without anyone in the production chain asking what the vocal actually was.
On October 4, Muslim viewers began flagging the sample, and the story spread faster than the show had. Playing sacred words under models in lingerie was widely condemned as blasphemous and disrespectful; the criticism landed hardest because the Savage X Fenty brand had built its reputation on inclusivity. Coucou Chloe apologised on October 5, saying she had not known the origin of the sample, and removed 'Doom' from streaming platforms.
On October 6, Rihanna issued her own apology in Instagram Stories, calling it 'an honest, yet careless mistake' and 'completely irresponsible.' 'I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion,' she wrote, acknowledging that the song had no place in the show. Four days separated the premiere from the apology — a speed that mattered, because the audience had already decided what the sample meant.
Why it happened
- The sample had sat in the track for three years; nobody in the production chain — artist, label, show — checked the meaning of a vocal they were licensing by sound alone.
- A brand built on inclusivity borrowed from a faith without consulting anyone in it; the audience that trusted the brand most was the first to flag the offense.
- Sacred recitation under lingerie reads one way to a music supervisor and another way to two billion Muslims — the gap between those readings was the entire failure.
The lesson
Music clearance is not paperwork — every sound in a show carries meaning someone holds sacred, and nobody on the Savage X Fenty production checked what the sample said.
Aftermath
Coucou Chloe pulled 'Doom' from streaming; Rihanna's apology was widely accepted as prompt and direct, and the show remained on Prime Video. The case joined the decade's runway controversies — CDG's cornrow wigs, Marc Jacobs's dreadlocks — as fashion's recurring lesson that borrowing from cultures without consulting them is a production failure, not a marketing one.
Sources
- Rihanna Apologizes for Using Islamic Hadith in Savage X Fenty Show — Time (Oct 2020)
- Rihanna apologizes for using hadith audio in Savage x Fenty fashion show — Los Angeles Times (Oct 6, 2020)
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