It\u2019s always fun when worlds collide \u2013 when two people whose paths should rightfully never intersect smash into one another like a car and train at a level crossing. I\u2019ve enjoyed many such occurrences on the political scene over the years \u2013 like Mrs Thatcher doing the video vote on Saturday Superstore with Ren\u00e9 from \u2018Allo \u2018Allo. But I never expected to find myself involved in one.<\/p>\n
I have to admit I never expected to get into the middle of a rap beef, let alone one connected to the Daily Telegraph<\/p>\n
That all changed on Saturday evening. There I was happily rolling pastry in the kitchen when suddenly my phone and other connected smart devices started flashing and pinging like a Chernobyl control panel. I snatched up my phone in my floury fingers to discover that I had been \u2018dragged\u2019 on X\/Twitter by American rapper Azealia Banks.<\/p>\n
It appeared that Banks had taken exception to the headline of a piece I wrote for the Telegraph last week about the magnificent poise, control, comic timing and serious intelligence of Kemi Badenoch in her Commons response to the King\u2019s Speech.<\/p>\n
The headline was, \u2018It is no surprise Nicki Minaj loves slay queen Kemi\u2019, referring to Minaj\u2019s similarly enthusiastic reaction to this event. (I should state here that Nicki Minaj is another American rap star.)<\/p>\n
\u2018This is the garbage pail kid who called Kemi Badenoch a \u201cslay queen\u201d\u2019 Banks tweeted, accompanying her blast with two photographs of me. She added, \u2018Fucking garbage eater\u2019 to stress her point.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s a well-known fact that journalists don\u2019t write the headlines above their columns, a task that\u2019s rightly entrusted to editors who understand much better what will catch a reader\u2019s eye, and also how to balance the spread of headings on the page. I suspect that Banks did not actually read the article, or she would have seen that it was approving of Badenoch. And that it made the case for her as a reviver of the tough British woman archetype, away from its irritating adoption as \u2018camp\u2019 by gay men and drag acts.<\/p>\n
Banks has been equally effusive in her support for Kemi. So I think we are singing from the same hymn sheet here. I gather that there is a feud between her and Minaj, which may have exacerbated her angry tweeting fingers.<\/p>\n
Still, I have to admit I never expected to get into the middle of a rap beef, let alone one connected to the Daily Telegraph. I mean, whatever next \u2013 Simon Heffer dissed by Kanye? Janet Daley trashed by Jay Z?<\/p>\n
Worse still, I had to have the whole thing explained to me by someone younger. I\u2019m afraid Banks\u2019s high days in the hit parade came around 2011, just after I stopped keeping even the semblance of an eye on the charts. And rap, frankly, has never been my cup of musical poison. Her name was vaguely familiar to me, but that was all. After some coaching, I was able to frame it in terms that I could understand \u2013 that it was a bit like being slagged off by Clodagh Rodgers in the mid-80s, a good 15 years after \u2018Jack in the Box\u2019 was the top bop.<\/p>\n
Both Banks and Minaj have taken a lively interest in British politics of late. This is refreshing, considering the amount of time we spend obsessing about the American scene. Indeed, Banks had another recent splutter at Minaj over Minaj\u2019s love for Thatcher, saying:<\/p>\n
\u2018Kemi is WAY BETTER than Margaret Thatcher \u2013 who in my opinion is one of the worst PM\u2019s in UK history.<\/p>\n
Margaret and, Theresa May and Liz Truss all fucking suck but i get that Kemi has to do the song and dance because they\u2019re women and she needs to seem like shes a girl girl \u2026 But all of Britains female prime ministers have been GARBAGE.\u2019<\/p>\n
This interest taken in Conservative party politicians by American rappers is new, and arresting. I am ready to be corrected on this, but I don\u2019t think that, back in the day, Tupac had much to say about William Waldegrave.<\/p>\n
As for me being a \u2018garbage pail kid\u2019 \u2013 these were comical chubby characters on 1980s trading cards, with button eyes and big round faces, usually pictured midway through some undignified activity or other. Fair enough, Ms Banks, fair enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s always fun when worlds collide \u2013 when two people whose paths should rightfully never intersect smash into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,325934,134,136],"class_list":["post-680556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coffee-house","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}