After initially praising it as “amazing,” Rapper Azalea Banks denounced pop star Beyoncé’s sixth studio album, Lemonade, as “the antithesis of what feminism is.”
Banks called Beyoncé “stupid” for spending years singing about how she suspects infidelity of her husband Jay-Z.
Banks claims that Beyoncé is a “thief” and a “poacher” of “art from other black women and pretends it’s hers.”
Beyoncé’s Lemonade was released Saturday in the form of a full-length visual presentation on HBO. The album conveniently divides 45 minutes of black nationalist feminism and spousal infidelity into 12 songs.
The HBO special opens with an incensed, baseball bat-wielding Beyoncé retaliating against an unfaithful lover. The singer is seen dancing through the streets of New Orleans smashing car windows, driving a monster truck over a row of rusted cars, and taking a bat to a New Orleans Police Department surveillance camera. Roger Friedman of Showbiz 411 isolates that music video, for the song “Hold Up,” noting the lyrics “I’m gonna f*** me up a bitch.”
Lemonade is awash with references to racial politics. The film features the mothers of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, which is done in homage to the anti-police Black Lives Matter movement.
Azealia Banks, of course, has had her own publicity-filled month.
On April 3, Banks suggested that Sarah Palin should be gang-raped by a group of black men. Three days later, Banks attacked all white people. “I’m 100% positive that the police killings, cultural appropriation, Trump and Palin etc. represent the contempt that whitey shares for this intangible, uncontrollable new black mind that’s been steeping for a while now,” the New York rapper wrote on her Tumblr.
Banks, who recently released a rap video featuring her dancing on top of a police car, may be using these stunts to help promote her new music.
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