Not For Imitation is a two-part visual essay that tracks the movement of exported cultures – from their extraction, to their flattening during shipping, and ultimately, their repackaging for unfamiliar audiences. Using Kendrick Lamar's 2017 hit DNA. as an anchor point, the piece examines how aesthetic forms, whether 'inspired' by Blackness or filtered through Orientalist fantasies, detach cultures from the lived experiences behind them, reducing them to commodities to be sold. The first half of the film centres on Korean-American artist Jay Park's DNA Remix, a 2021 reinterpretation of Kendrick Lamar's DNA. Unlike its namesake, which explores themes of Black struggle, resistance, and identity, Park's rendition features a thoroughly stereotypical depiction of Blackness used as mere packaging for his product. Visually, the film forces the audience to sit with the discomfort caused by the video's appropriation of Black aesthetics, from the numerous performers donning braids to choreography that mimics African diasporic dances. Lyrically, they are confronted with the dissonance between the levity with which references to gang violence are made and the gravity of their impact on real communities. The divorce of the subject matter from pain of Black communities is accentuated by the contextualisation of the Korean artists' sheltered lives, culminating in the final argument that the appropriation of Blackness in hip hop today resembles a modern form of minstrelsy. At the same time, the film acknowledges the structural forces that shape such performances. Drawing from prominent hip hop scholar Tricia Rose's work, the piece recognises the influence of the white gaze in creating a market that rewards stylised, hypermasculine portrayals of Black life, pressuring artists into conforming to reductive stereotypes – much like how, as Suzette A. Spencer argues in Henry Box Brown, an International Fugitive, Henry "Box" Brown's body and story became "currency" within the British spectacle economy. Simone Browne's framework of racialised surveillance, as featured in Race and surveillance was another notable influence in the development of this theme, prompting me to consider how Black communities are scrutinised into compliance with White expectations of normalcy. This framework helps complicate the issue of cultural appropriation in the global hip hop scene, reframing it not as mere imitation, but as the replication of stereotypes that have long been demanded of Black artists themselves. The second half of the film returns to Kendrick Lamar's DNA. in what initially appears to be a reclamation of Black identity. Building on Clyde Woods' concept of a "blues epistemology" from Sittin' on Top of the World, I frame hip hop as a spatial practice that, like the blues before it, creates space for marginalised communities. I then question the inclusivity of hip hop culture, asking whether all marginalised communities are equally afforded space for expression within a tradition that is often framed as universally resistant. Rather than reassert DNA.'s authenticity in representing Blackness, the section examines how Lamar himself engages in the use of Orientalist aesthetics through his 'Kung Fu Kenny' persona. Much like in the previous section, the piece exposes the viewer to the uneasy visuals of cultural appropriation via footage from a performance of DNA. with dancers in ninja costumes and a short film featuring a stereotypically Asian martial arts master, highlighting the Orientalist undertones embedded in his work. While Lamar's use of these elements may seem subversive or playful, it is then contextualised within a broader historical and cultural trend of the exoticisation of Asia in Western media. The section concludes by underlining the role of Orientalist stereotypes in shaping anti-Asian sentiment, contending that such practices have tangible impact on real communities. Crucially, the film does not position the two case studies as equivalents, nor does it offer any comparison or judgement on which is 'more acceptable'. Instead, it approaches the phenomenon of cultural appropriation through Katherine McKittrick's assertion that "Black matters are spatial matters". Through both case studies, I argue that cultural appropriation itself is a spatial practice that reorganises cultural terrain, determining which identities and experiences are represented and which are diluted for public consumption. Under this framework, appropriation inevitably involves erasure, and thus can never be neutral. This argument is mirrored in the film's construction. Though composed largely of unrelated archival footage and media excerpts, the confrontational editing style, marked by rapid juxtapositions, sharp cuts, and frankensteining, creates an aggressive tone in which disparate clips appear to argue with one another in visual stichomythia. Yet, this sustained intensity gives way to an abrupt, unresolved ending that denies narrative closure. Thus, the film challenges the instinctive desire to one form of oppression against another, refusing to rank harm or establish moral hierarchies. Instead, it foregrounds the structural forces that shape both case studies, ultimately asking who holds the power to decide which communities are represented, and how their stories are told.