Lana Del Rey slammed for criticising female artists of colour in album announcement
Lana Del Rey has posted a statement on Instagram announcing a new album while hitting back at critics who say she “glamorises abuse”.
The 34-year-old singer called out “female writers and alt singers” who have blamed her “minor lyrical exploration detailing my sometimes submissive or passive roles in my relationships” for “[setting] women back hundreds of years”.
However, her statement has been widely criticised for attacking the lyrical content of female artists of colour.
She wrote: “Question for the culture: Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, f***ing, cheating etc.
“Can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money – or whatever I want – without being crucified or saying that I’m glamorizing abuse?”
At the end of the post, Del Rey confirmed that her seventh album will be released on September 5th this year and that it would likely contain “tinges of what I’ve been pondering”
Read the post in full below.
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UPDATE (26/5/2020): Lana Del Rey has posted a video discussing the backlash to her statement.
“When I mentioned women that look like me, I didn’t mean white like me,” she says. “I mean the kind of women who other people might not believe, because they think, ‘Oh, well look at her, she fucking deserves it’ or whatever. There are a lot of people like that.”
“The difference is, when I get on the pole, people call me a whore, but when [FKA] twigs gets on the pole, it’s art. I’m reminded constantly by my friends that, lyrically, there are complicated psychological factors that play into some of my songwriting, but I just wanna say that the culture is super sick right now, and the fact they want to turn my post, my advocacy for fragility into a race war, it’s really bad.
“I’m super strong… you can call me whatever. I’m sorry that I didn’t add one 100% caucasian person into the mix of the women that I admire. It really says more about you than it does about me.”
She finished by saying: “I’m not the enemy, and I’m definitely not racist, so don’t get it twisted. Nobody gets to tell your story except for you, and that’s what I’m gonna do in the next couple of books. So god bless, and, yeah, fuck off if you don’t like the post.”
She also revealed the title of her forthcoming album, ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’.
Watch it below.
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