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…
I wonder where the descendants of the "DeWolf" family are today. they should all have their houses burned and their finances seized.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
This generation of young back kids needs to make a CONCERTED effort to seek out living descendants of major slave trading families.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
They Owe us Money.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
Jews and Native Americans all got reparations because they organized. Please don't let my "beef" with hip-hop distract from what we need…
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
To be focusing on. We are owed MAJOR FUCKING BUCKS kids, MAJOR BUCKS.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
Aetna, New York Life Insurance Company, and JP Morgan and Chase all have deep connections to the Slave trade, and are …..
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
Still holding on to that capital. They used the money they made from our flesh and blood to fund the Industrial revolution.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
Please please please do not get distracted with reality tv and rap music and fashion and all that other dumb shit.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
We are the children of the people who perished in the name of modern capitalism and we deserve a piece of that fucking pie.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
I would give up my music career to fight for reparations. To even the score once and for all.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014
AMERICA OWES BLACKS OVER 100 TRILLION DOLLARS. pic.twitter.com/Bp1YfAtBED
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) December 26, 2014