Azealia Banks got her weekend off on a caustic note, engaging in a Twitter beef with up-and-comer Angel Haze that soon spilled over to involve celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and a gay slur.
The battles began on Thursday, when Haze, a Michigan-born rapper who released her EP Reservation, in July, apparently took exception to Banks' tweeted assertion that people who were not born and raised in New York should not claim to be New Yorkers. Haze tweeted a diss track, "On The Edge" to Banks, and Banks responded on Friday morning with her own track, "No Problems." On Friday afternoon, Haze released "Shut The Fuck Up," which she called the "last diss track you'll ever hear from me." Between tracks, the two rappers fired insults at each other, with Haze referring to Banks as a "charcoal-skinned bitch" and Banks declaring, "I'm bout to rip this bitch's head off and toss it in the cauldron." Other Twitter users weighed in on the dispute, including Perez Hilton, who took Haze's side.
Azealia Banks Trips Out in 'Atlantis'
This prompted the inflammatory post from Banks: "lol what a messy faggot you are." She soon attempted to clarify her use of the slur: "A faggot is not a homosexual male. A faggot is any male who acts like a female. There's a BIG difference," she explained. She later refined her message with a word that she recently told Rolling Stone was a sign of her affection for her gay fans: "When I said acts like a female I should've said acts like a cunt."
By Saturday afternoon, Banks – who released a proper single, "BBD," just before the diss-track feud began – attempted to dismiss the controversy. "Really not as moved by this f word thing as u all want me to be," she tweeted. "As a bisexual person I knew what I meant when I used that word."
