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Justin Timberlake has spent the last week catching heat for his response to Jesse Williams’ standout speech at the 2016 BET Awards, and it looks like it’s not over yet. Vic Mensa slammed the singer during a roundtable discussion on The Nightly Show for what he sees as a history of cultural appropriation by JT.
First, Mensa explained the gripe with the “Can’t Stop The Feeling” singer.
“I feel as if the issue is not Justin Timberlake having an input or even appreciating this speech. That’s something that most people can resonate with,” he said. “Our problem here is that Justin Timberlake himself is definitely benefiting from using black culture for his sound, his dance moves, his dancers, and blowing up off of it. But if you roll down Justin Timberlake’s Twitter for the past two years, which I just did, you see nothing that supports black people when it’s more difficult, when it’s a struggle.”
Mensa claims that Timberlake needs to support black people in difficult times if he is going to coast off of association with powerful moments like Williams’ speech. While many other artists have expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement in interviews and their own art, Timberlake has been silent.
“With everything that’s going on, with everybody that’s been killed by police on camera in the past couple of years, there’s no #BlackLivesMatter, there’s no ‘praying for Baltimore,’ there’s no ‘praying for Flint,'” Mensa said. “Because that’s a dangerous subject for him to touch. And we’re not feeling him being down when it’s beneficial to him and turning a blind eye when it could be dangerous.”
After the appearance, Mensa tweeted that he wasn’t attacking Timberlake personally.
https://twitter.com/VicMensa/status/748579179105488896
(Via Stereogum)
