First of all, let’s just bask in the absolute glory that is this name Xavier Naidoo.
Apparently he’s a hotshot German R&B singer who happens to throw some pretty intense lyrical Nazism into his tunes. Unsurprisingly, his lyrics equating homosexuals to child rapists — “Wo Sind” (Where Are) — aren’t going over well with most audiences, and the same can be said for his anti-Semitic stuff, too, known to drop derogatory yiddish terms like ‘shmock’.
Some of his defenders have taken the stance that his lyrics are from the point-of-view of abused children, but it’s a half-assed ploy. We know that namely from Naidoo’s appearance at a recent far-right rally.
Naidoo was originally going to be Germany’s candidate for the Eurovision Song Contest — which is like American Idol meets the UEFA Champions League — but a huge regional backlash forced Germany to withdraw his nomination. This begs the eternal question: what is okay, and what is not, in terms of controversial lyrics?
Most recently, we collectively wondered whether it was okay to ban Tyler, the Creator from an entire country (hint: it wasn’t). First and foremost we need to remember freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, but it’s only a legal right in America.
Complicating things though is its consideration as a universal human right, but these are not internationally enforced from a legal standpoint. Furthermore even in the U.S. it’s only a legal right in public, government-sanctioned legal dealings. No one can be arrested for getting on a street corner soapbox and spewing some garbage like “Jews are evil.”
However as most Fox News-ers forget, any private entity has the right to sever ties with the wack-job on that soapbox: if the anti-Semitic on the street corner (or with a bigoted Facebook account) happens to have a not-filled-with-hate employer, said employer can sack the yokel for the hate speech. If that soapbox wack-job says anything “a reasonable person would view as a violent threat,” then they can be arrested, according to the First Amendment’s definition of a ‘true threat’.
Naidoo didn’t say anything threatening, but given his political leanings his lyrics show a definite animosity towards the same people Nazi Germany killed by the million. And, like both American Idol and the UEFA Champions League, a private, for-profit contest doesn’t have to suffer bigots, particularly when the whole fan base opposes your rhetoric.
On a related note, the Neo-Nazi hardcore-punk copycat movement, while both its ideology and co-option of a left-wing genre is despicable, it does makes some musical sense, what with the race-hate and musical aggression.
But R&B? Isn’t that supposed to be baby-making music?
Maybe Germany just needs a The Weeknd — someone to croon about drugs instead of genocidal tin-foil hat territory.
