This weekend, Iggy Azalea insinuated on Twitter that Azalea Banks was unnecessarily trying to make her discussions about hip hop racial and political. Noting her lack of context for Banks’ stance, Q.Tip attempted to educate the Australian pop star on the history of hip hop.
Over the course of 40 tweets, the legendary lyricist calmly explains:
HipHop is a artistic and socio-political movement/culture that sprang from the disparate ghettos of NY in the early 70’s Coming off the heels of the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and approaching the end of the Vietnam war it was a crossroads 4 America specially for blacks in the US
Being a spirited, rhythmic & expressive people music art dance outlined our existence… it proved a way for us to exhault to scream to dance to laugh and find OUR VOICE
Black and Latino Kids were carving out their space and it became infectious… eventually Keith Cowboy coined the phrase hiphop . Yrs later the first rap record was recorded and now we r moving.
But during these strides this country still had the monster of racism and racial insensitivity breathing and ruling… believe it or not young black n Latino lives specifically weren’t acknowledged in mainstream American culture unless Of course.. the convo was abt gangs , being criminals or uneducated. And hey! Like I stated early our families were rushed our schools sucked and we were left to put devices to survive… but HIPHOP showed that we had DEPTH, fire, and BRILLANCE… the music was undeniable! It moved from NY N became national and even GLOBAL.”
Hiphop now was FOR EVERYBODY!! All of those who cld relate to the roots, the spirit, the history, the energy.. It reached YOU… it touched your spirit n took u up. We magnetized you! That’s what BRILLANCE does… now u are fulfilling your dreams … BUT! you have to take into account the HISTORY as you move underneath the banner of hiphop. As I said before… hiphop is fun it’s vile it’s dance it’s traditional it’s light hearted but 1 thing it can never detach itself from is being a SOCIO-Political movement.”
Everyone applauded Q-Tip for his approach. But not surprisingly, T.I once again sought to defend his money making ingenue.
T.I writes:
Also what I think my big Bruh kinda left out is that OUR people (blacks in America,& HIPHOP) have had much less qualified White People come along & manipulate our culture for their own pers gain. This lead to an almost incoherent overly defensive, paranoid sense of… “All White People Wanna Steal Our Shit” mentality. Now as difficult as this is to believe…. We think all white people who do our shit… gotta kiss our ass or we don’t like em!!! “Dey shady!!!” (Lol No pun intended) But me knowing U,Eminem,and a handful of other… (just so happen to be) white people who were inspired by our culture allowed ME TO SEE, that not all white people out to steal our culture.. There are some that merely wish to contribute to it. And I’d be less than ME if I didn’t say that… If WE don’t allow u guys the same… …rights & respect we KNOW WE DESERVE in other areas of humanity… WE’RE ALL JUST A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES. AND THATS NOT HIP HOP!!!!
Anecdotes about Azalea’s cavalier attitude towards race are so rampant someone has even started a Tumblr account dedicated to it. So T.I’s attempt to make it seem as if critics of his artist are just being “paranoid” quickly set Black Twitter on fire. In the gallery above, you can check out racial tweets made by Azalea in the past along with people’s reactions to T.I’s response.
Please note that Azalea has confirmed the series of Tweets above stating, “There was once a time when I could crack jokes. on twitter. I can’t do that now. in part because you guys would make life a nightmare and in part because it would just be unprofessional.”
