American rapper Tyler, The Creator won the Best International Male at the BRIT Awards on Tuesday.
Tyler used his acceptance speech to call out former Prime Minister Theresa May for an incident that happened in 2015.
Five years ago Tyler was supposed to play his first British shows to debut his third album Cherry Bomb, but was not accepted into the country after Theresa May, the then Home Secretary, said in a letter to his management that his music “encourage[d] violence and intolerance of homosexuality” and “foster[ed] hatred with views that seek to provoke others to terrorist acts.”
At the BRITs, Tyler said: “Shout out to all the UK boys that keep this place fun for me at night. And I want to give a shout to someone who holds a special place in my heart – who made it so I couldn’t come to this country five years ago.
“I know she’s at home pissed off. Thank you to Theresa May.”
In an interview from last year with Tom Skinner from NME, Tyler addressed his ban saying “I got treated like a terrorist… Yeah. I got treated like I was a murderer.
“It was kind of stupid, and after a while I was like: I don’t even want to come back. But it was more the principle of: ‘Y’all really did this, over this? In comparison to other shit people do, that y’all let in?’ So I’m happy that I got back. I feel like I won some invisible fight.”
Tyler, The Creator first came to prominance with Joan 2011 release Goblin that featured the hits, Radicals, Goblin and Yonkers.
Since then Tyler has released multiple albums including: Wolf (2013), Cherry Bomb (2015), Flower Boy (2017) and his newest album yet, Igor (2019).
Tyler, The Creator joins the likes of Drake (2019 & 17), Kendrick Lamar (2018), Justin Bieber (2016) and Pharell Williams (2015) in winning the award.
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