Rapper Dave brings up Boris Johnson’s Africa comments in defence of claims PM is racist

Dave has resurfaced Boris Johnson’s controversial comments about African people, in order to strengthen his claim that the prime minister is “a real racist”.

The rapper added lyrics to his song “Black” at this year’s Brit Awards, saying: “The truth is our prime minister is a real racist.”

Home secretary Priti Patel then denied this claim, telling BBC Breakfast: “He’s absolutely not a racist and I’m afraid that is very much a generalisation that has been made by rapper Dave, and I just disagree with it.”

She also told Sky News: “That’s utter nonsense, it really is. I don’t know what those comments are based on … He is not a racist at all. I just think those comments are highly inappropriate.” 

Dave has now tweeted a video of Patel’s denial, adding in footage of him scrolling through an article detailing all the prime minister’s controversial remarks about Africa.

The CNN report points to Johnson’s Spectator column from 2002, titled “Africa is a mess, but we can’t blame colonialism” and another in which he described young Ugandan children who sang for him as “Aids-ridden choristers”.

A third example given was Johnson’s use of the word “piccaninnies”, a racist term used to describe black children, in a column he wrote for The Daily Telegraph.

And in another article in The Daily Telegraph about the Congo, Johnson wrote: “No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”