Belgium drops controversial rapper Damso from World Cup song after sexism outcry
>> BRUSSELS: Belgium’s national football association ended a collaboration with rapper Damso on Friday after protests from women’s groups, politicians and corporate sponsors that his lyrics were sexist.
Damso was to create the country’s official song for the World Cup, which begins in June in Russia.
National football teams often commission musicians to create songs for big tournaments as a way of building morale and reflecting national identity.
But the choice of Damso, whose songs feature threats of violence against women and crude references to the female anatomy, has instead inflamed tensions between fighting sexism and freedom of expression.
The Royal Belgian Football Association said on Tuesday that it would not be “taken hostage” by the controversy.
But on Friday, it announced that it had ended the collaboration with Damso “by mutual agreement,” according to a statement.
The association went on to say, “We especially wish to apologise to all those who felt offended, discriminated against or diminished by the choice of the artist in question.”
Gendered insults and sexist intimidation were outlawed in Belgium in 2014, partly in response to a 2012 video taken with a hidden camera by Sofie Peeters, a film student, that showed her being showered with harassment and insults as she walked through Brussels.
Bianca Debaets, a local politician in Brussels, told the website Euronews that Peeters’ film should be screened for Damso and the national football team.
Damso has also attracted criticism from Muslims for a line in a 2015 song, “Pinocchio,” in which he describes performing a certain sex act on a woman and says, “and yet you wear a headscarf.”
Damso denied charges of sexism and laughed off criticism, saying he viewed the controversy as free advertising. He told the website Alohanews that his critics were lazy and had not taken the time to understand the codes of rap music.