Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Azealia Banks dropped from Born & Bred Festival following attacks on Zayn Malik and grime

By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 12 May 2016

Azealia Banks has been dropped as a headliner of Rinse FM’s London-based Born & Bred festival following derogatory comments she made about the UK grime scene.

Banks’s trail of offence began on Tuesday when she accused Zayn Malik of ripping off her ‘Chasing Time’ video with his new ‘Like I Would’ promo. Initially saying that she was “not mad about this”, she then launched into a Twitter rant where she referred to him has a “token sand nigga”, “dirty refugee” and “faggot”.

She then moved on to the entire genre of grime saying, among other things: “The UK really can’t rap though. UK rap is just a disgrace to rap culture in general”.

Needless to say, both grime fans and rappers – many of whom Banks was set to share the stage with at Born & Bred – were not happy. Rapper NoLay, now recovering from the car crash she was involved in last month, tweeted: “Please don’t talk about grime or UK rappers. You are very average and I will spin you back into your mother’s womb”.

Heading off a potential PR disaster, Born & Bred issued a statement yesterday, saying: “We have decided to cancel Azealia Banks’ headline appearance at Rinse Born & Bred Festival. Rinse Born & Bred Festival is a celebration of rave culture and has been created for EVERYONE. We celebrate inclusivity and equality”.

Responding on Twitter, Banks said: “To all of my darling UK fans who bought tickets to see me at the Rinse FM show, my sincerest apologies! But you know Mama Puma always goes in for the kill and NEVER backs down. Until next time!”

Yeah. See ya. She later added further thoughts on her insults against against Malik, saying that she had used racist language to highlight the fact that they are both seen as ‘other’ by the music industry. And because she was angry.

“I said what I said to Zayn because I was angry”, she wrote. “He felt as if he was too good to acknowledge me, yet not too good to copy my creativity. I had to remind him that we were both in the same boat in this industry [as] people of colour by reminding him that no matter what you may think of yourself, the world still sees you as ‘other'”.

“Resisting the urge to say loads more terrible things to each and every one of [you]”, she added. “But obviously I’m insanely fucking talented and have already lowered myself to the levels of people who don’t even deserve to share the same air I breathe”.

Anyway, just to reiterate, she’s not coming to the UK, so no breath-swapping required.