American rapper Will.i.am has accused Microsoft of stealing his earbuds design idea. He took to his twitter recently and slammed the tech giant for copying the design of his hit wireless button earphones. The seven-time Grammy Award-winner William Adams had launched a super sleek design of button earbuds back in 2016. The tech gear looked like a metallic upgrade of age-old vinyl records, they were designed by Andre´ Leon Talley, a former Vogue editor, as reported by Moneycontrol.com

In a series of social media posts, Will claimed the ‘Surface Earbuds’ launched by Microsoft on October 2 is a rip-off of his design and how he had showed them the same four years ago. He also shared photos of both the designs where the similar-looking earbuds are just different in colour. While Will is seen wearing black ones, the newly launched earbuds are white in colour.

He called the act as “culture theft”, tagged Microsoft in the post and wrote: “An African American start-up struggling to inspire innercity kids with tech, only to find a GIANT steals our individuality & differentiation.”

In another post he recalled hoping to work on collaboration for the same, “When you meet with a big company in hopes to collaborate with your big dreams & ideas, on how tech Should speak to & from inner city to inspire inner-city kids to take an interest in tech...and 4 years later that company copy’s the design and product you made is just sad...”.

Many fans came to his aid and showed support. One twitter user shared how he recalled Will had worn the same earbuds to Graham Norton show “a long time ago”, others took to their social accounts and shame the company for the alleged theft.