fbpx

‘They Owe Us Money’: Azealia Banks demands $100 trillion in slavery reparations


A few weeks after Azealia Banks released her long-awaited debut album Broke With Expensive Taste, the New York rapper and performer is calling for $100 trillion in slavery reparations.

Taking to Twitter on December 26, Banks unleashed a series of tweets demanding African-Americans today are compensated for the United States government’s history of slave trading. Sharing articles about reparations and citing financial compensation received by Holocaust survivors and Native Americans, Banks relayed the $100 trillion figure after it was published in Harper’s.

The publication determined that amount by calculating repayments from 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and 1865, with six percent interest.

According to the NME, Banks also engaged James DeWolf Perry, a descendant of prominent Rhode Island slave traders the DeWolf family “who was involved in a documentary about coming to terms with his family history.” The NME adds: “Questioned about profits from the project, Perry replied, ‘Thanks for asking. No, I’m not making any money from documenting the DeWolf family’s slave trading past.’ Banks went on to request proof of this claim, as well as asking Perry, ‘What did you [sic] family do with all the money you made from slavery???? I need to know. Now.'”

Here are a few of Banks’ tweets that sparked the debate…