US rapper Azealia Banks has again lashed out at Australia, including the country’s music industry, in a scathing, now-deleted series of posts on her Instagram Stories.
Yesterday (May 8), Banks took to Instagram to post several stories in which she slammed Australia, calling it “one of the most culturally outdated white nations on the planet” in the process.
In the posts – which were caught by Uproxx – Banks wrote that Australia’s media, music and entertainment industries are not “exactly heralded by heads of government or anyone in the world as a sought-after cultural export”, adding that Australians do not “realise how insignificant they are as far as music culture goes , because they are deluded into thinking that their whiteness makes Australia an A Market when it really is a CD market”.
Banks went on to argue: “This is mostly because Australia has an extreme lack of internationally appetizing talent outside of Kylie Minogue, INXS & AC/DC”. She also shared her thoughts on two prominent Australian musical exports: “Tame Impala is just cheesy to me and Wolfmother are excellent – but clearly an American rock tribute band.”
The rapper wrote that the country “doesn’t have many acts that anyone really cares about globally because they’re in a vacuum of off-band British culture”, which she attributes to the country’s geographical location and “how aggressive, barbaric, oppressive and violent they have been to the very existence of native black people”.
She claimed that “the Australian music industry and Australian culture is so rubbish” because of the country’s “historical post-colonial obsession” with “trying to prove to England and the monarchy” that they were “actually a proper white/Anglo-Saxon society” .
“But they have actually created one of the most culturally outdated white nations on the planet,” she wrote. In a separate story, Banks shared an excerpt of a report on Australia’s listening habits that shows 22 of 296 songs included in the country’s weekly top 50 songs come from Australian musicians. “Australians don’t even want to hear Australian music LOL,” she wrote.
azealia banks just called australia “one of the most culturally white outdated nations on the planet” i love her omg pic.twitter.com/ASSiJE3dFf
— alison (@tramsphobic) 7 May 2023
In a final post ending her tirade against Australia, Banks said: “Someone needs to tell the Aussie music industry that absolutely no one on earth takes it seriously. Like they NEED to understand how talentless/uncultured and unnecessary they are for it larger global arts community, realize that musical talent just isn’t in the gene pool and redirect those funds to the indigenous peoples of the continent and just pack up their crap and go back to Europe.”
“You stomped all the blackness out of Australia – that’s why your music exports are bad and we don’t feel sorry for you,” she concluded.
Banks’ latest comments about Australia appeared to be prompted by her anger over a recent release of her song ‘New Bottega’ by Australian label Sweat It Out. In a series of stories posted on her Instagram ahead of taking on Australia, Banks claimed a “pissing bad remix of my master track” was released in the country in March instead of her preferred version.
“They basically denatured my intellectual property, cherry picked what they wanted from it and fraudulently presented it to the world as the song [I] wrote,” Banks claimed. “And they released it, so that’s the only version of the song they’re entitled to.”
NME has reached out to a representative for Sweat It Out for comment.
Azealia Banks’ new tirade also comes after the rapper canceled two out of three Australian shows she had lined up last December. Her first show, which was set to take place at the Festival Hall in Melbourne, was canceled hours before it was due to start due to problems with her visa being granted in time.
Banks blamed the show’s organizers, saying they “dragged their feet, agreed to provide a number of amenities that were not delivered” and hit back at the organizers’ claims that the show will be rescheduled, writing: “Big apologies to the fans, who bought tickets but there will be no rescheduled show. I have something to do.”
Banks’ Brisbane show on 13 December was subsequently scrapped with promoter Point Productions saying the gig was unable to go ahead “due to unforeseen circumstances” that were “well out of [their] management”.
Before the show was cancelled, Banks said on social media: “After this run it will be my very last time touring Australia. This place makes me absolutely miserable and I’m too black and beautiful to have a bunch of white people in my face playing with me over their SWAGE ASS CURRENCY You can count this as a farewell tour.”