Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has been fending off accusations of appropriating black culture in her music and image, claiming: “I’m still going to make the same type of music and still be ridiculous and larger than life. So I can’t be that f***ing sorry about it.”
In a recent Cosmopolitan cover interview, the infamous rapper said accusations that she built her career on black culture appropriation are nothing new to her, and insisted not everyone interprets her music thus.
“You could ask one person of the same race, ‘Does this affect you?’ and they will say yes. But another person will say no. They could be from the same place, same everything, but have different perspectives about it,” said the showbiz celebrity.
The singer also referred to her way of dealing with similar cultural appropriation accusations in the past.
“I would hit back and say, “What about this that I had to go through?’ because I wanted to talk so much about my experiences of things I didn’t have, and I think it felt like I wasn’t acknowledging that there is white privilege and there is institutionalised racism,” she said.
She added that she understands that the criticism stems from America’s relationship with race and that history is “f***ed up”.
The artist also tweeted her personal opinion on some of the other more sensitive aspects of her interview.
Twitter users rushed to react, with some agreeing that art is always opinion-based.
Other users voiced their unequivocal support for the rapper.