A Detroit hip-hop and R&B radio station will no longer be playing Kanye West’s music following the controversy surrounding the rapper’s recent comments about slavery.
Two on-air DJs told 105.1 the Bounce’s Detroit audience Thursday they were “refusing to give [Kanye] a platform” on their shift. Since then, the rest of the station has reportedly joined the boycott.
“We feel like Kanye has gone too far with his latest statement declaring that ‘slavery was a choice,'” wrote DJs BIGG and Shay Shay in a Facebook post. “We are over it. We don’t want to hear Kanye’s music, we don’t want to play Kanye on our show, we don’t want to talk about Kanye anymore. So we are taking a stand and we aren’t playing his music anymore; we just are refusing to give him a platform.”
During a Tuesday interview with TMZ, West referred to slavery as a “choice,” a characterization he later clarified by saying he meant that black people were being “mentally enslaved.”
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice,” said West. “Like, you were there for 400 years and it’s all of you all? You know, it’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word prison ’cause slavery goes too — too direct to the idea of blacks.”
The Bounce’s move is the latest in a series of boycotting and deplatforming efforts by liberal activists upset at West’s comments and recent social media support of President Trump. The group Sleeping Giants is currently behind an effort to influence Adidas to drop their partnership with the rapper.