""African Imperial Wizard is a middle-aged white man," the band wrote in their Instagram post. "We had the extreme displeasure of playing with him last night not knowing who he was until he came backstage and, to our shock, took off his hood. The Imperial Wizard (which is a term for a 'Ku Klux Klan' leader) obscures his white identity to the extent that he even wears gloves to cover his hands all while projecting a pastiche of Black African 'tribal' imagery on screen.""
""He also claims to be part of an imagined pan-African armed struggle and calls for his African brothers to join together to play on his records," Xiu Xiu continued. "These records are actually just made with Ableton samples. In the great and horrible tradition of Western music, he is taking the art and lives of Black people and crazily perverting them for his own bizarre edification and profit. This is extreme blackface and a profound level of racist appropriation.""
Xiu Xiu identified African Imperial Wizard as a middle-aged white man who concealed his identity by wearing a hood and gloves while projecting stereotyped Black African 'tribal' imagery. The performer adopts an Imperial Wizard moniker tied to Ku Klux Klan leadership while claiming participation in an imagined pan-African armed struggle and soliciting African collaborators on records. Xiu Xiu asserts the records are assembled from Ableton samples rather than genuine collaborations and characterizes the act as extreme blackface and racist appropriation of Black art and lives for profit. The claims arose after both acts performed at the Hradby Samoty festival in Bratislava, and the performer’s public profiles include album art and promotional videos reflecting the pastiche imagery.
Read at Consequence
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