F* is a Male Acting Like a C*** So Says Azelia Banks

Rrollingstone.com   ‘I said a F* acts like a female I shoul’ve said acts like a cunt"

Azealia Banks got her weekend off on a caustic note, engaging in a Twitter beef with up-and-comer Angel Haze that soon spilled over to involve celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and a gay slur.

The battles began on Thursday, when Haze, a Michigan-born rapper who released her EP Reservation, in July, apparently took exception to Banks' tweeted assertion that people who were not born and raised in New York should not claim to be New Yorkers. Haze tweeted a diss track, "On The Edge" to Banks, and Banks responded on Friday morning with her own track, "No Problems." On Friday afternoon, Haze released "Shut The Fuck Up," which she called the "last diss track you'll ever hear from me." Between tracks, the two rappers fired insults at each other, with Haze referring to Banks as a "charcoal-skinned bitch" and Banks declaring, "I'm bout to rip this bitch's head off and toss it in the cauldron." Other Twitter users weighed in on the dispute, including Perez Hilton, who took Haze's side.

This prompted the inflammatory post from Banks: "lol what a messy faggot you are." She soon attempted to clarify her use of the slur: "A faggot is not a homosexual male. A faggot is any male who acts like a female. There's a BIG difference," she explained. She later refined her message with a word that she recently told Rolling Stone was a sign of her affection for her gay fans: "When I said acts like a female I should've said acts like a cunt."

 Azealia Banks took to Twitter this weekend to denounce Dolce and Gabbana's controversial new line, which debuted at Milan Fashion Week last month and used offensive Blackamoor images. She wrote, "Definitely boycotting Dolce and Gabbana" [SIC].

By Saturday afternoon, Banks – who released a proper single, "BBD," just before the diss-track feud began – attempted to dismiss the controversy. "Really not as moved by this f word thing as u all want me to be," she tweeted. "As a bisexual person I knew what I meant when I used that word.” 

"Whoever designed that racist ass Dolce and Gabanna collection needs a swift kick in the mouth and a big dick up the ass," the rising rapper also stated. The fashion items in question include a pair of earrings and a dress that displays images of black women clad in lavish clothing and jewelry that can be interpreted to represent slavery. Banks went on to call the images "just really unnecessary. The clothes in the collection were fine without all the 'black mammy' imagery."

In response to the initial outcry, Dolce and Gabbana wrote on their website that the designs were based on Moorish figures, which can refer to many peoples throughout history; in the case of the designers' native Sicily, the images hold particular cultural resonance. In that country, the term Moorish is a term used to define its conquerors.

Still, these explanations seem to hold little weight for Banks, who noted, "I really hate when people do corny, racist things then try to justify it as 'art'." The burgeoning fashionista would know; the up-and-coming musician recently designed her own shade of M.A.C. lipstick.