Azealia Banks played to one of the fullest tents at Splendour in the Grass festival in Byron Bay this weekend, but a throwaway tweet by someone who wasn’t even there has kicked off a war of words in which the US artist labels Australian audiences as terrible, violent and belligerent.
When Paul Brown, a radio broadcaster from Brisbane, tweeted congratulations to Banks for “completing her first-ever full Australian concert”, the singer quickly bit back. “You guys are terrible crowds to play for. You’re violent and belligerent and I simply ... will not put my safety at risk. I would’ve walked offstage had someone thrown something,” she said in a series of tweets.
Both Brown and Banks’s comments seem to reference the rapper’s 2013 walkouts at the Listen Out festivals in Sydney and Melbourne, where audiences began chucking cans on stage. These curtailed sets and her wider reputation for no-shows led Guardian Australia to question whether Banks would turn up for her much touted Splendour in the Grass 2015 appearance.
In the event, she pulled one of the biggest crowds of the weekend, with reviewer Fred McConnell praising her performance, even if she was upstaged in the energy stakes by her own team. “Banks focused on the crowd and seemed happy to be here, which is notoriously not always the case,” he wrote. “However, it was the backup dancers we came away talking about.” After her festival appearance, Banks performed sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne before becoming embroiled with Brown and others on Twitter.
“You guys are too far away and honestly, the show guarantees are never really worth the trip,” she wrote, “but I love my fans and will do anything to make them happy, Sincerely AB.”
When 20-year-old Nic Kelly criticised the singer’s attitude and told her not to “bother doing another show, thanks”, Banks told him to “stay in your place”. It’s not Banks’ first beef with Australians. Since 2012 she and the rapper Iggy Azalea have had a fractious relationship on social media. It culminated in December 2014 in a heated debate about US race issues and the perceived white appropriation of black hip-hop culture, in which Banks called Azalea “Igloo Australia”. Not everyone is jumping to criticise Banks for her latest outburst, however. One Twitter user praised the singer for “always telling it like it is”.
