Azealia Banks has joined Nicki Minaj in calling out racism within the music industry by claiming her work is overlooked because the US doesn’t like opinionated black women.
The outspoken rapper wowed critics with her long-awaited debut album, Broke with Expensive Taste, but her music videos were absent from all of the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) categories. Taylor Swift emerged with the most nominations after Kendrick Lamar, receiving nods for nine awards.
Banks, 24, is known for being forthright and often discusses her opinions and disputes with other members of the music industry publicly. She addressed her VMAs snub in two succinct tweets:
All my videos deserve VMas and my album deserves a Grammy but I'll never get one because America doesn't like opinionated black women.
; AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 21, 2015
Poor Me.
; AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 21, 2015
Minaj also criticised MTV for only choosing videos that celebrate “women with very slim bodies” and claimed her video for 'Anaconda' would have been nominated for best choreography and best video if she was “a different ‘kind’ of artist”.
MTV VMAs: Most controversial moments
The 'Pink Friday' rapper said she was tired of black woman constantly influencing pop culture but rarely being rewarded for their contributions. She later found herself having to explain the music industry's race problem to Swift.
Banks previously blasted the rapper Iggy Azalea for appropriating black culture but refusing to denounce the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael brown by a white police officer during the Ferguson riots, tweeting, "Black culture is cool, but black issues sure aren’t huh?”
