The US rap star has stirred controversy by criticizing BLM and donning a “White Lives Matter” shirt
Kanye West, the US rap star identified for courting controversy and getting cash, has stoked a brand new wave of concern, accusing Black Lives Matter of being a “rip-off” after he provoked on-line pushback by sporting a “White Lives Matter” shirt.
“Everybody is aware of that Black Lives Matter was a rip-off,” the 45-year-old entrepreneur mentioned on Tuesday in a since-deleted Instagram publish. “Now it’s over. You’re welcome.”
The assertion was apparently a response to criticism that West acquired after sporting a “White Lives Matter” shirt on Monday at his Yeezy vogue present in Paris. The present showcased Yeezy’s new clothes line and featured fashions sporting shirts emblazoned with the controversial counter-BLM slogan. For good measure, West was photographed alongside black conservative firebrand Candace Owens sporting matching shirts with “White Lives Matter” printed on the again and an image of the Pope proven on the entrance.
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“Kanye West determination to put on a ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt is disgusting, harmful and irresponsible,” black creator and professor Marc Lamont Hill mentioned on Twitter. “A few of y’all will rush to defend him. You need to ask yourselves why.”
Kanye West determination to put on a “White Lives Matter” shirt is disgusting, harmful, and irresponsible. A few of y’all will rush to defend him. You need to ask yourselves why… pic.twitter.com/YT4a6c9tKI
— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) October 3, 2022
Rapper Jaden Smith, son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, walked out of West’s vogue present in protest. “True leaders lead,” Smith mentioned. “I don’t care who it’s. If I don’t really feel the message, I’m out. Black lives matter.”
BLM has been tormented by monetary scandals. As an example, the brand new chief of the nationwide BLM not-for-profit group, Shalomyah Bowers, was accused in a lawsuit of siphoning off greater than $10 million in donor charges to pay his consulting agency. BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors went on an actual property shopping for binge final yr, buying 4 properties for a mixed $3.2 million. She additionally was accused of paying her brother and her youngster’s father greater than $1.8 million mixed for offering companies to BLM. The group acquired greater than $90 million in donations in 2020.
West, who now goes by the identify “Ye,” ranks because the world’s richest rapper with a fortune estimated by Forbes at $2 billion, primarily based largely on his Yeezy vogue model. He has ceaselessly generated controversy, akin to when he visited then-President Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace in 2018 and mentioned in an interview that very same yr that slavery was a “alternative” for black Individuals.
