Kanye, Miley, Madonna and more in garish and satirical illustrations scrapped by MTV

The bright, light-hearted animation and illustration work coming out of South American studio Le Cube has drawn clients from Vodafone to Cartoon Network to Nescafé and recently landed a commission from MTV. Split between Buenos Aires and São Paulo, the studio was commissioned to create seven gif-style animations for the TV network which poke fun at some of the biggest names in pop music. The resulting Pop Icons series, which sees Nicki Minaj’s backside bouncing on washing machine, Justin Bieber melting his own face with a hair dryer, and Kanye West kissing himself, was unfortunately deemed too inflammatory to air and was scrapped by the MTV legal team. When all that was said and done, Le Cube decided to go ahead and finish the project regardless. “If you want to sue something, sue boredom,” writes the studio.