It’s not often we can say an American rapper has a storied history with the British Prime Minister, but Tyler, The Creator and Theresa May definitely have history.
When Tyler and Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) first broke on to the scene circa 2009 they did so with foul and often controversial lyrics. It was these lyrics from Tyler’s first few projects that made then home secretary May ban the 23-year-old, just last year, from entering the UK for three to five years for “posing a threat to public order”.
“It sucks, whatever,” Tyler said of his ban while at the Afropunk festival. And on May now running the country? “Yeah … that f****** sucks. Y’all f****** up over there. I know we f****** up but y’all f****** up too.”
AFROPUNK – Timeline | Facebook
The rapper, who’s also banned from visiting New Zealand, shared the Government letter he received with the Guardian, and it still makes interesting reading.
“The Home Secretary has considered whether, in light of this list, you should be excluded from the UK on the grounds that your presence here would not be conducive to the public good,” the letter said.
“The Home Secretary has reached this decision because you have brought yourself within the scope of the list of unacceptable behaviour by making statements that may foster hatred, which might lead to intercommunity violence in the UK.”
It continued: “Your albums Bastard, in 2009, and Goblin, in 2011, are based on the premise of your adopting a mentally unstable alter-ego who describes violent physical abuse, rape and murder in graphic terms which appears to glamorise this behaviour.”
But now it appears the script has flipped and, post-Brexit, Tyler is viewing the UK with the same suspicion May once viewed him with.
“Y’all already made the decision that y’all hate n****** or anything that ain’t white and old. Y’all already f***** up over there.
“Hopefully we don’t get to that point over here. I mean … we’re already at that point but I’m just saying … everything has a tipping point. It has to get really, really bad before it gets better.”
And on the subject of those early Odd Future lyrics? “I was writing those when I was 17 or 18. I didn’t think that what I was doing would matter … I’m not going to apologise for the things I said, because at that time it was cool.”
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