From top: Hot Press 2019 Annual; instagram post from 2017

 

…Yesterday, I read many powerful testimonies about the impact of racism, both overt and casual. It is something that has no place in any civilised society and I have no hesitation in condemning it in every respect. Unequivocally, black lives, and how they are lived, whether in Ireland or across the world, matter deeply. Never for a second, in my entire life, have I felt anything different.

However, on the basis of the feelings of genuine hurt it has aroused, then I clearly got it wrong in the original opinion piece – for which I apologise.

In particular, the article – and the Hot Press cover story on [Ringsend rap duo] Versatile back in 2018 – were both published long before a photo was brought to our attention of a member of Versatile at a party dressed in blackface, alongside someone clearly posing as Eazy-E of NWA – the photo was taken before they started to become a phenomenon.

Whatever way you look at it, the photograph puts accusations of racism in Versatile’s lyrics into a very different light. Clearly they do have a case to answer.

If we been aware of that photograph, would my opinion piece have been written in the same way in 2019? No.

Stuart Clark, deputy editor of Hot Press [more at link below]

Versatile: An Apology by Stuart Clark (Hot Press)

Versatile: Are They Racist And Misogynistic? (Hot Press, August 9, 2019)

Previously: Straight Outta Conleth’s

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25 thoughts on “Uneazy

    1. Cú Chulainn

      They’re not crap.. they are fecking brilliant.. they are also young and getting better and better. Hot press forget what it is too be young 30 years ago.. get a life, learn a bit of irony.. get a sense of humour.. or poo poo off..

      1. realPolithicks

        “get a life, learn a bit of irony.. get a sense of humour.. or poo poo off..”

        People like you are a large part of the problem here.

      2. class wario

        two privately schooled white fellas from dublin barely able to stay on beat and with the most laboured flows ever put to record shouting racial stereotypes/slurs to c-grade beats yeah great stuff

  1. Conksi

    they’re not ‘dressed in blackface’, they’re dressed as EazyE and IceCube and have blacked up their faces

    1. Tony

      Ah now Conkers in fairness none of the lads from NWA look like a cast member from the Black and White Minstrel Show! Fairly sure that’s your classic ’blackface’’ right there

      1. class wario

        they really torpedoed their own plausible deniability by being sure to not black up a comically large section around his mouth

    2. Conksi

      how does one dress up correctly as one’s fave rappers so? this i never get…
      And nobody like Vanilla ice

      1. Cian

        if you are white:
        step 1. ensure your favourite rapper is Emenim.
        step 2. please stand up

      2. class wario

        i feel like if your costume is totally dependent on you blacking up in order to be recognisable it probably isn’t very good to begin with.

        you could dress up as eazy e pretty…eazily without blacking up

  2. scottser

    who dresses up in blackface any more? i mean, you might as well dress up as a nazi or a pederast for all the LOLs you’re going to get.

  3. Johnnythree

    This virtue signalling is getting a tad wearing. What are we going to do – go through every photo that might possibly have offended and issue a retro apology? We’ll be a while so.

    1. SOQ

      Yes Johnnythree- I know you have pictures of that time you dressed as a gay to a party.

      Freddie Mercury is one of MY people and you misappropriated my culture- aplogise NOW- on both knees- while flailing your bare back with fresh nettles.

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