UK rapper Wiley faces investigations over Twitter posts of anti-Semitism
British rap singer Wiley is currently facing a police investigation after that a string of anti-Semitic comments appeared on his social media accounts, prompting his management to drop him.
The rapper’s Twitter account, which has more than half a million followers, published a series of tweets yesterday asserting that Jews systematically exploited Black artists in the music industry, continuing a pattern of exploitation dating back to the slave trade.
The Twitter posts read “Jewish people don’t care what black went through they just use us to make money to feed their kids...for generations as well,” and “Hold some corn Jewish community you deserve it...”.
The British charity Campaign Against Antisemitism referred tweet to police saying it was an act of incitement to racial hatred as, it said, “hold corn” was slang for “take bullets”.
Nonetheless, many were the video clips that appeared on Wiley’s Instagram account between Friday and Saturday.
“Crawl out from under all your little rocks and come and defend your Jewish privilege now,” he said in one of the videos he posted.
A spokeswoman for London’s Metropolitan Police said: “We are aware of reports of alleged anti-Semitic comments posted on social media and will look into the matter,” confirming they had received several complaints about Wiley.
Twitter has deleted some anti-Semitic statements on the rapper’s account, but others remain, drawing criticism from other users of the social media platform.
“Even for Twitter this is shocking,” said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.
Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., 41, better known by his stage name Wiley and in his early career Wiley Kat, is a British grime MC, rapper, songwriter, DJ and record producer from Bow, East London. He is considered a key figure in the creation of grime music and often labelled the "Godfather of Grime"
He released a number one single in Britain in 2012 and had several other top 10 hits. He then received a UK government honour for his contribution to music in 2018.
However, after the incident, John Woolf, of A-List Management, said: “Following Wiley’s anti-Semitic tweets today we at @A_ListMGMT have cut all ties with him. There is no place in society for antisemitism,” Woolf announced on Twitter, meaning that he would no longer represent the artist.
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