She recently criticized Beyoncé’s Black is King and it doesn’t look as if Noname is letting up on her strikes against the Disney-promoted project. Noname previously accused Beyoncé and her team of using an “African aesthetic draped in capitalism” for the praised Disney+ film—a criticism that followed Noname’s brief spat with J. Cole. Then, yesterday Noname set out a tweet about an reported instance of police brutality and used the opportunity to send another jab to the Grammy Award-winning singer.
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“Hey @Disney if black is king you’ll boost this,” she tweeted, hoping to shift attention to 16-year-old Nathaniel Julius who was shot and killed by police officers. It’s reported that Julius has Down syndrome, and when he was approached by officers, he struggled with communicating. During the incident, things escalated and Nathaniel was killed.
Following her tweet, Noname stood accused of attempting to use the death of the disabled teen to support her disapproval of Beyoncé. The backlash was heavy, so Noname returned to her Twitter account to apologize while clarifying her objective.
“My intention was not at all to use Nathaniel’s death to critique Beyoncé,” she wrote. “I apologize if that’s how it came off. It just hurts to see @disney a billion dollar company profit of the likeliness of black folks and not do anything to support when blk people dying from state violence. I take responsibility and sincerely apologize to his family. #JusticeforNathanielJulius.”
