Icelandic rapper Króli was dismayed to witness North Iceland band The Hefners perform in blackface. Króli recounted the incident in a Facebook post, saying the band was not receptive to his calm attempts to explain why he was against the practice. Vísir reported first.
The Hefners have been performing for years in Húsavík, North Iceland, donning dark face makeup and black afro wigs for their appearances.
“I tried to tell them in a polite way that this was not OK,” Króli wrote, adding that he lost his cool when he received responses like “you just don’t get it,” “they are honouring, not insulting,” and that people found it acceptable when Robert Downey Jr. donned blackface (in the movie Tropic Thunder).
When Króli asked the band members if they were prepared to take harsh criticism for their actions, he says, they responded that they did not care what people “from the south” would say on the internet and insisted they would continue performing in the same get-up.
“I don’t want to sound as narrow-minded as this blessed band and say this whole community is blind because they are definitely not,” wrote Króli, but stated that many Húsavík residents responded arrogantly to his attempts to explain what was wrong with the performance and laughed at him. “I am dumbfounded that this is happening in this country in 2018,” said Króli at the end of his post. “Can we please not let this be accepted[?]”
