British rapper Dave has doubled down on his criticism of Boris Johnson, after branding the prime minister a “real racist’ during this year’s Brit Awards.
On Tuesday night, Dave delivered the stand-out performance at this year’s Brit Awards, when he took aim at the PM in a new rap after a rendition of his song Black.
The performance has obviously been blasted by some right-wing critics, including the following morning on Sky News, when Tory MP Priti Patel called the suggestion that Johnson is racist “utter nonsense”.
“I don’t know what those comments are based on,” she added. “It’s wrong to make judgements about individuals when you don’t know a particular individual, as in the case of the prime minister. He is not a racist at all and I just think those comments are highly inappropriate.”
Dave has now shared a snippet of this interview on his Twitter page, alongside past comments made by Johnson which have led to accusations of racism.
Among them were excerpts from columns Johnson has written in the past, including one containing the phrase “flag-waving piccaninnies” and another in which he said: “Africa is a mess, but we can’t blame colonialism… the problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge anymore.”
Dave’s Brit Awards rap also saw him hitting out at the media’s treatment of Meghan Markle, as well as calling for “support for the Windrush generation” and “reparations”.
The performance was reminiscent of when fellow rapper Stormzy closed the show at the Brits two years ago, and hit out at then-prime minister Theresa May over the way her government reacted to the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Johnson has been heavily criticised in the past for referring to Black Africans as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” in opinion pieces he has written, as well as using language that has been deemed homophobic, classist and sexist.
