Nicki Minaj tweeted her frustrations on Tuesday over what the annual crop of MTV Video Music Award nominees says about mainstream music: black women are rarely rewarded for their influence on pop culture.
The rapper, who scored three nominations herself, accused MTV of snubbing her hit song “Anaconda” for ‘Video of the Year,’ alluding to how Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” landed among the top award’s nominees—even though both videos shattered viewing records and became staples of this year’s pop culture.
It didn’t take long for Swift to fire back—then try to clear up the bad blood:
It didn’t take long for Minaj and her fans to respond, either. As the rapper and fans argued, it’s not Taylor that they have a problem with—it’s the racism embedded in the music industry:
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