When a Twitter user made a rude remark about Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor, the Shea Butter Baby singer wasn't having it. "Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor's ability to have dangerously high sex appeal while simultaneously looking like rottweilers will always amaze me," the random person said. Seeing the tweet, Ari replied, "People hate blackness so bad" before taking to her Instagram Live to rant about insults that black women face.
"I’m not f*cking with that sh*t,” she said on Instagram. “How people hate Black people so much, how Black people can sit up here and say, ‘That’s not my problem.’ Or, ‘She does look like a rottweiler.’ And you want to talk about, ‘Oh, people are so sensitive, they want us to cancel freedom of speech.’ Why is this your speech?”
The Joe Budden Podcast discussed Ari's response, and Mal began by saying that people put too much stock on what goes on in their comment sections in being offended by the remarks of strangers. He understood that things can be triggering, but it shouldn't be that serious to us because trolls want to "push a button." He agreed with her that blackness is disrespected, but "Ari, you have to know that there's way more people that think you are beautiful, attractive, talented, all of these things."
Joe Budden chimed in and asked his co-hosts, "Does anything about the Ari Lennox thing scream insecurity to you?" He later added, "Insecurity. How you feel about you versus how what people feel about you versus how what people feel about you does to how you feel about you. Insecurity. And while there may be variations of it or different reasons of why it stems, insecurity is insecurity."
Joe said that Ari's comments about black women are "absolutely correct," but "we have to be able to compartmentalize... What I take from that is, Ari, I’m hearing you, a black queen, speak to the beauty and essence of black queens. I’ve heard you speak to it before. So when I hear you reply to people like whoever this pawn dude is, it’s like, are you telling me how beautiful the blackness is, or are you telling you, because if you truly feel like that, if you truly believe that black is beautiful, as beautiful as it is, and you embody that, you will not use your energy, your platform, your power... when you negate that power or misuse it by replying to just whatever [this person] has anything to say, then what we really doing here? How do you really feel about you?”
Watch their complete exchange about Ari Lennox beginning around the 2-hour mark.