Azealia Banks Says She "Hates America," Disses Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West In Playboy Interview: "Playing That Nonthreatening Black Man Shit" (Video/Pics)

Video And Pics After The Jump

Playboy has released their interview with Azealia Banks from their latest issue. In true Azealia form she raises eyebrows during her controversial chat with Rob Tannenbaum.

Check out an interview excerpt plus photography by Ellen Von Unwerth below.

Is there someone whose career you’d like to emulate?

Jay Z. That’s the only person I have my eye set on. The race thing always comes up, but I want to get there being very black and proud and boisterous about it. You get what I mean? A lot of times when you’re a black woman and you’re proud, that’s why people don’t like you. In American society, the game is to be a nonthreatening black person. That’s why you have Pharrell or Kendrick Lamar saying, “How can we expect people to respect us if we don’t respect ourselves?” He’s playing that nonthreatening black man shit, and that gets all the white soccer moms going, “We love him.” Even Kanye West plays a little bit of that game—“Please accept me, white world.” Jay Z hasn’t played any of those games, and that’s what I like.

If people read your Twitter account and don’t like you, is that because of race?
It’s always about race. Lorde can run her mouth and talk shit about all these other bitches, but y’all aren’t saying she’s angry. If I have something to say, I get pushed into the corner.

And whenever you point out that discrepancy, someone on Twitter says, “Why are you trying to make this about race?”
Because y’all motherfuckers still owe me reparations! [laughs] That’s why it’s still about race. Really, the generational effects of Jim Crow and poverty linger on. As long as I have my money, I’m getting the fuck out of here and I’m gonna leave y’all to your own devices.

Do you want to leave the U.S.?
Yes! I hate everything about this country. Like, I hate fat white Americans. All the people who are crunched into the middle of America, the real fat and meat of America, are these racist conservative white people who live on their farms. Those little teenage girls who work at Kmart and have a racist grandma—that’s really America.

You said black people aren’t supposed to be Christians. What religion do you identify with?
I don’t want to say, but I’ll tell you about one form of the religion. It’s called 21 Divisions. When they brought the slaves over to the Caribbean, they syncretized all their African gods with Catholic saints. So in 21 Divisions there are black gods and goddesses, and my mother practiced that when I was little. Whenever problems happened, we turned to 21 Divisions to fix it. It’s funny, because my friends on the block in Harlem, their mothers would be like, “Oh, you fucking with that witchcraft. You working roots.” You can cleanse people with root work or do bad things to them. But 21 Divisions is celestial.

To read the full Q&A head over to Playboy