Rory Farrell has been a big voice in hip-hop media and music as a whole for a while. Unfortunately for him, that status is now under scrutiny due to resurfaced anti-Black tweets and reposts that caught him a lot of heat on social media. The podcaster and artist's response during a Twitter Spaces session, which included a lot of sarcasm, did not make things better.
However, the Rory & Mal Podcast cohost wants to make it clear that he does sincerely apologize for offending anyone. During the latest episode of their podcast, Mal told him he is a "glutton for punishment," and Rory agreed that he wanted to take the criticism head-on. He understands the criticism, especially given his whiteness. But Farrell said his intentions didn't come off like he wanted, since he wanted to "get his talking-to" and regrets coming off as dismissive in the beginning.
"The people that know me know who I am and know what it is," he explained in a clip caught by joebuddenclips/fanpage on Twitter. "But there were people in [the Twitter Spaces] that don't know me. They were actually searching for an actual response. [...] They were genuinely just looking for an answer, and I apologize for being dismissive to those people in particular." The podcast cohosts pointed out that some of the tweets under fire are fake posts or fake retweets from over a decade ago. Twitter was different back then as far as reposts and the like.
DJ Akademiks Rory Beef
"I was a little condescending... Everyone was texting me, 'Get the f**k out of the Spaces,'" Rory remarked. "I felt like it was too late. I got to just stay here. 'Cause if I run, it's even worse. But I handled that Spaces very poorly. I will say that... So I want to apologize for that. [...] People have every right to feel a way with or without context."
Farrell then brought up his whiteness again and explained how he understands the outrage as a result. "Yesterday, I just was in a different mind space, and I was being a f***ing d**k," he remarked. "Because I thought it was laughable for somebody to call me a raging racist. But this morning, with a different lens and a good night's sleep, yeah, I sounded like a f***ing a**hole."
For the most part, Mal dismissed the whole backlash as a non-issue and said folks just wanted to pile on something as a new trending topic. Rory's catching more heat for other reasons, as this situation brought up beef with other media figures. DJ Akademiks, for example, called him out for allegedly visiting his house a few years ago, posting pictures in public of Farrell and his child. We will see how this all continues to develop...
