Since calling out Australia’s visa laws on his new song Fuck It, rapper Tyler, The Creator has been accused of having “a tantrum to music” by Collective Shout, the activist group which successfully campaigned to have the rapper banned from touring Australia for “misogynistic hate speech against women, as well as homophobia”.
As AAP reports, Collective Shout Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper dismisses Tyler’s latest track as juvenile, and says he could have given the song lyrics which don’t “rely on the exploitation of women to generate profits”.
“Instead he’s essentially had a tantrum to music,” Ms Roper says.
“While he may have been a young man when he wrote music describing raping women, mutilating their bodies, locking them in his basement and raping their corpses, he’s not a child anymore, and he is yet to grow up and take responsibility for what he has put out into the world.”
Tyler’s new track Fuck It makes reference to Australia’s visa and quarantine laws, and features the line, “Tell Australia I’m sneaking in with a mic in my damn hand / Instead of the vegetables that I packed in my backpack.”
In the song, Tyler also questions how Eminem has been granted a visa to enter Australia in the past, given that he has a history of violent and homophobic lyrics.
“When Marshall had this problem what the fuck was they telling him? Is it cause of status or his melanin lacks black,” Tyler raps on the song. “I think people love to be mad.”
Roper says Collective Shout would also like to know why Eminem was granted a visa after the group “partnered with a coalition of domestic violence organisations in 2014 calling on the government to deny Eminem a visa”.
Tyler’s September Australian tour was cancelled in August after the Department of Immigration and Border Protection raised issues with his visa application. The cancellation came after Collective Shout launched their campaign to ban Tyler back in June.
Since his Australian ban, Tyler has been banned from the UK for three to five years — a move which he says makes him feel like he’s “getting treated like a terrorist”.
Hear Tyler take aim at Australia’s visa ban in Fuck It, below.
Listen: Tyler, The Creator – Fuck It
