In light of a recent interview with Billboard magazine, Miley Cyrus is facing backlash over her comments of not listening to rap and hip hop music anymore.
After talking about a new Kendrick Lamar song, she said: “That's what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much 'Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock'—I am so not that.”
You might ask yourself why this would be an issue, but some believe she “appropriated” black culture a few years ago to shed her Disney image. Now that it no longer serves her, she just tossed it away like yesterday’s garbage.
It didn’t take long for Twitter users to voice their displeasure.
Ironically, Miley Cyrus is pulling a "that's why you ugly, anyway!" on hip-hop after spending years trying to get its approval.
— Keith RC (@kreid_c) May 4, 2017
Cyrus even brought up the use of black dancers during her MTV Video Music Awards performance, saying she didn’t pick the dancers because they were black, but because they were the ones she liked.
“That became a thing, where people said I was taking advantage of black culture, and with [Bangerz collaborator] Mike [WiLL Made-It]—what the fuck?” Cyrus said. “That wasn't true. Those were the dancers I liked!”
On this subject, Huffington Post writer Zeba Blay wrote:
Just a few years ago, circa 2013, Cyrus was called out for appropriating black culture through her style and her music. The former “Hannah Montana” star who had famously once declared in 2009 that she’d never actually listened to a Jay Z song, had asked for a “black sound” for her hit single “We Can’t Stop.”
During the entire era of her “Bangerz” album, Cyrus twerked, hung out with Three 6 Mafia, rapped about being “high on purp” and rocking Jordans in videos with Mike Will Made It, wore cornrows and dreadlocks, and generally folded all the hallmarks of hip-hop culture into her image and her sound.
Cyrus’s “Bangerz” era was about announcing herself as no longer a Disney kid, no longer Hannah Montana. Period. The easiest way to do that was to co-opt black culture, to use the irreverence and the edginess of the then-burgeoning trap scene to cement her as an “adult” star.”
After hearing about the backlash, Cyrus took to Instagram to clarify her comments: “When articles are read it isn’t always considered that for hours I’ve spoken with a journalist about my life, where my heart is, my perspective at that time, and the next step in my career.”
“Unfortunately only a portion of that interview made it to print…To be clear, I respect ALL artists who speak their truth and appreciate ALL genres of music (country, pop, alternative ... but in this particular interview I was asked about rap),” she continued. “I have always and will continue to love and celebrate hip hop as I’ve collaborated with some of the very best!”
