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Artist News Gigs & Festivals
Tyler, The Creator not yet banned from Australia
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 28 July 2015
Tyler, The Creator’s long fought battle with activists in Australia rages on, with the rapper claiming yesterday that he had been banned from the country following renewed action by feminist group Collective Shout.
His last run-in came in 2013, when Collective Shout attempted to have his Australian visa blocked on the grounds that his lyrics “promote hate speech against women, perpetuating male entitlement to use women’s bodies, to regard women as ‘bitches’, ‘sluts’ and ‘hoes’ for their sexual use”.
After subsequently being allowed into the country, Tyler then used at least one of those words and some others in a tirade against a member of the group on stage at a show in Sydney, for which she reported him to the police.
Yesterday, the rapper tweeted that he had been “banned from Australia”, tagging Collective Shout’s Director Of Operations Coralie Alison in his post. This resulted in a barrage of abuse from his fans to her account, which hardly helped matters.
And, as it turned out, the statement was not actually true. Promoter Frontier Touring later posted an update to Facebook, saying: “With respect to media reports that Tyler, The Creator’s visa has been refused, Frontier would like to advise that this is not the case. The department for immigration has raised issues with the visa application but it has not been refused and Frontier will update ticket holders as soon as more information comes to hand”.
Meanwhile, Azealia Banks has said that Australian audiences are “terrible” and “violent”, so perhaps Tyler is better off being banned anyway. The rapper was responding to a tweet from a punter joking that she had just “completed her first ever full Australian concert”, the joke being that that counted as an achievement, of course.
She wrote: “You guys are terrible crowds to play for. You’re violent and belligerent and I simply will not put my safety at risk. I would’ve walked off stage had someone thrown something. Plus you guys are too far away and honestly, the show guarantees are never really worth the trip. But I love my fans and will do anything to make them happy”.
So, Australia, make of all that what you will.
