Bhad Bhabie did a livestream with Lil Yachty today to address accusations of cultural appropriation, and things got a bit heated on her end.
On Wednesday (July 21), the Florida rapper went on Instagram Live with Yachty—a friend of hers who shares the same manager, Adam Kluger—to denounce that she is racist and appropriates Black culture.
"You think if you yell at a screen, people gon' be like, 'Oh, she's not racist?'" Lil Boat asked during the conversation. Bhad Bhabie replies, while raising her voice to an octave much higher than Yachty's, "There's proof out there that what I said was not that. And what I do is not for that reason."
Yachty, who recently invested in a Jewish dating app with Bhad Bhabie, calmly responded: "But I need you to understand that there's a better way to get your point across."
Bhabie fired back, presumably referring to fans criticizing celebrities and artists, but not being able to receive that same criticism. She said, "It's so frustrating that the internet is so fucking sensitive that anything I do or anything anyone else does, but then the minute one of us comes for them, 'Oh, why you talking about me? Oh, you don't even know me.' Like, what? How does that even make sense?"
Regarding the topic of Bhad Bhabie being a culture appropriator, she defended her actions. "The one thing I'm really really sick of is the whole, 'Bhad Bhabie is a cultural appropriator,'" she said. "No, y'all make these words have different terms for what they even mean. Cultural appropriation is if I was to sit up and say, 'Oh, a certain race looks ugly with that and then I go do that on myself. Or say braids, for example, if I said that Black girls looked ugly with braids and then I go get them, that's cultural appropriating. Or, when girls put chop sticks in their hair…"
She then added, "That's doing something negative with someone's culture… But when you simply do it out of appreciation, that's not appropriation."
Yachty followed up, questioning what Bhad Bhabie is even referring to. Then, Bhabie inquired why she'd be considered racist if she wants to be a Black person.
"Oh, what?" she continued. "Because I have a hood accent? OK. Anybody can grow up in the hood: White people, Asian people, Spanish people, Black people. Anybody can grow up in the hood. You see Asian boys that get adopted by White families, they don't have an Asian accent."
Lil Yachty, who can't be seen on the livestream, but is clearly baffled by Bhabie's logic, expressed in response to his rapper friend: "I swear to God, nobody cares."
Bhad Bhabie went on to yell that she could donate $5 million to a charity, but would still be told that she isn't Black.
The cultural appropriation accusations Bhad Bhabie is shielding herself from seemingly stems from actions and comments she has made in the past.
Bhabie, who gained fame following her appearance on the Dr. Phil show in 2016, on which she used the now-widely known phrase "Catch me outside. How ’bout dat?," caught fire last April after defending herself for trying to be Black while comparing her life to the story of Tarzan—a Disney film based on a character named Tarzan, who was raised in an African jungle by apes.
During an IG Live conversation, she said, "And then another thing I'd like to say is, y'all say that I try to be Black because I…and maybe a reason in me trying to be Black is 'cause I grew up in the hood. Tarzan, right? The story of Tarzan." The livestream cut off, thus Bhabie didn't go into detail on an explanation for her comparison.
The following day, the rhymer claimed that veteran rapper Lil' Kim got surgery done to look like a White person while defending her own use of darker color foundation.
Check out the discussion between Bhad Bhabie and Lil Yachty below.