In the last episode of the program “”. It was Kuba Szmajkowski and Kendrick Lamar. The singer was made up to look like an American singer – his face was painted and a false beard and mustache were attached. In the United States, such a performance would immediately be accused of racism, but in Poland, a similar motif appears quite regularly in this program.
However, the second episode of “Your Face Sounds Familiar” became louder than usual. . Finally, the interested person himself – Kuba Szmajkowski – spoke.
“Your face sounds familiar”. Kuba Szmajkowski comments on allegations of racism after his performance
Kuba Szmajkowski, as an idol of the younger generation, chose the TikTok platform to comment on his performance discussed abroad. He added the following note to the song originally performed by Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez: “We are one”:
Me after making another bad decision, but I don’t worry about it, because it’s for the good of the story, he wrote carelessly.
This approach was not warmly welcomed by the musician’s fans. “Just a statement and I’m sorry”, “Just apologize and that’s it, is it that much?”, “Dude, you sang the N-word. It’s reprehensible”, “How can you say the n-word?!” – we read in the comments. There are also many people among them who accept the point of view of the show’s creators and claim that “nothing happened” and Szmajkowski’s performance was neither a blackface show nor should anyone be offended by the offensive word N****r, what was said from the stage.
In an interview with Polsat after the performance, Szmajkowski also explained that performing “Humble” brought him closer to the foreign musician: “Only now, thanks to the program, I could get closer to his character and check who he really is. I have watched a lot of his performances and it is incredible how he has great stage charisma. He uses a lot of vulgarisms in the lyrics for a reason. Thanks to this bluntness, he focuses the recipient’s attention on what he really wants to convey. In the lyrics of the song “Humble”, the rapper recalls his childhood, the poverty in which he lived and the hard times that he has gone through in his life. He confesses that he is proud of what he has achieved, how much he has earned and what he has,” Szmajkowski summed up.
What’s with blackface and the N-word?
Kuba Szmajkowski’s performance as Kendrick Lamar reached beyond the borders of Poland, because it is rare in today’s world when someone thoughtlessly paints a white person black and tells him to rap on stage using the word “nigger”, which is generally considered offensive. Blackface is a form of pretending that a light-skinned person is a dark-skinned person. Such performances were very popular during the times of racial segregation and were always aimed at stereotypically and mockingly showing black people. In Western countries, this type of performance is generally considered an element of racism.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
