Stormzy tells Michael Gove ‘You lot picked the wrong f***ing rapper’ in row over election tweet
STORMZY has hit out at Michael Gove over his election tweet saying he picked “the wrong f***ing rapper” – and said the Conservatives’ election victory felt “like a dark cloud”.
After the artist backed Jeremy Corbyn ahead of the election, Mr Gove tweeted to say he was a “far, far better rapper than he is a political analyst”.
The former Education Secretary added: “I think we again know that Stormzy, when he took to the stage at Glastonbury wearing a stab vest, he made clear what his political views were then.”
Wading in to the spat, Labour MP Angela Rayner tweeted: “And Michael Gove is crap at both.”
In response Mr Gove tweeted: “I set trends dem man copy”. The tweet was subsequently ridiculed.
In an interview in The Observer Stormzy described Mr Gove’s comments as a “weaponised tactic”.
He said: “It’s the classic, ‘You’re just a rapper’. Using ‘I set trends dem man copy’…No one was talking about that. I wasn’t talking about music, I wasn’t talking about ‘Shut Up’ – I was talking about politics.
“So him saying that is like he said: ‘Oh, no, forget politics. This is what he does. He’s a rapper.’ It’s a weaponised tactic.
“They do it to young people, they do it to black people, they do it to rappers, they do it to entertainers: ‘Just shut up and rap.’ Stay in your lane. It’s very telling of who these people are.”
The musician added: “I’m intelligent. That’s why there’s always a bit of a smugness to me. So when they dismiss me it’s like, ‘You lot picked the wrong f***ing rapper'”.
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In an interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra Stormzy said the Tories’ election landslide felt like a “dark cloud”.
The rapper, who had described Jeremy Corbyn as a “man of hope”, said: “As soon as it hit midnight…I was signing albums. But it was like a dark cloud, you could feel it.”
He has previously described Boris Johnson as a “sinister man”.
Stormzy released his second album, Heavy Is The Head, on Friday.
The track Lessons on his new album addresses the end of his four-year relationship with presenter Maya Jama.
Meanwhile the rapper feared the country was going to “slaughter” him when his Glastonbury Festival performance was hit by technical difficulties, but feels he was “saved by God”.
The rapper said he wanted to “cry so bad” when his in-ear monitors blew twice during his headline set, and that he was certain it would be the end of his career.