Janelle Monáe is no longer riding wit Nelly. The nonbinary rap legend has one simple message for Nelly over his decision to perform at Trump’s inauguration: “You sold out.”
On Sunday, Monáe performed a medley of songs at the Grammys after-party with the bar’s owner, rapper Anderson .Paak. When Monáe got around to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” she took the opportunity to turn up the heat on the St Louis rapper, according to a video captured by TMZ.
“F*ck you Nelly,” Monáe rapped in the middle of the song. “I used to like Nelly, but then he went to perform for Donald Trump. … I care about women, I care about Hispanics… You sold out. I used to think you were cool. Nelly, you sold out. I used to think you were cool, but now you look like a motherf*cking fool.”
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Nelly—along with Snoop Dog, Carrie Underwood and the Village People, who all performed at Trump’s inauguration—has received intense backlash over his performance. At the time, he defended his decision by claiming that his presence at the celebration of the president’s inauguration is not about politics.
“I’m not political,” he told Houston rapper Willie D in a livestreamed conversation last month. “I’m not out here trying to tell anybody who they should vote for. This isn’t politics. The politics, for me, is over. He won! He’s the president.”
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“I thought you was riding with me because I put on for my city and I try to bring my city up every step of the way,” Nelly continued. “I did not know you was riding with me because you thought I would ride with who you voted for. I didn’t know that.
“I didn’t know I had to agree with your political choices, and I thought it was the things that you do not the things that you say should be done. If you follow what I do, this shouldn’t even be an argument. He’s the president. He won. This isn’t a campaign, this isn’t an RNC. I’m not out on a political campaign.”
Monáe, for one, seems to understand that this is no time for claiming to be apolitical. If her message to Nelly is anything to go by, she is firmly on the side of the marginalized communities Trump daily threatens.
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