After laying down some seriously racist and ignorant tweets directed at former One Directioner Zayn Malik, then directing her ire towards a 14-year-old actress, it’s gone all quiet on the Azealia Banks front, with searches for her Twitter account being met with a suspension notification.
A statement from Twitter to Billboard reads, “We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons” so it’s not entirely clear if the call to suspend her account came from Twitter or from within Banks camp attempting some damage control, but it’s clear the damage is already done.
It all started rather trivially, when Banks accused the boyband alumnus of copying her style for his latest video offering Like I Would, and then somehow descended into a round of racist and homophobic slurs directed at Malik, who is of Pakistani heritage.
In a series tweets Banks told Malik to “Simmer down with that fake white boy rebellion and that wannabe beiber swag”, adding: “you a bitch nigga for even responding like that. Keep sucking this yung rapunxel dick u hairy curry scented bitch.” And it went further than that.
Backlash was swift and not only was Banks removed from the line up of a British festival following the racist tweets, according to NME, UK authorities are now considering banning the one-time rapper from the country.
The highly unpopular tirade was followed up by a weak non-apology: “To anyone who was offended by any of the things I said. Not sorry I said it. But sorry for the way I made people feel.”
She’s also taken to Instagram to add: “Calling him racial slurs was my way of trying to angrily remind him that he is in fact not one of them, he is one of US. The white privileges he’s so eager to take part in do not apply to him. He’s colored, like me. His people suffer at the helm of white supremacy just like mine do. He has NO RIGHT to treat me as if I’m not worthy of anything, because the white privilege he’s reaching for does not apply to him. In the racial-social construct of the pop world he is STILL beneath Justin Beiber.” See her full post below.
You can be sure this isn’t the last we hear of Banks but here’s hoping management have decided to move away from ‘shock factor’ and encourage the young rapper to put her energy into something constructive, maybe another good single? 212 was actually good.
