Issa Rae served as host for the newest episode of Saturday Night Live, featuring a musical performance from Justin Bieber. Many fans found themselves more intrigued by Jim Carrey’s impression of Joe Biden or Bieber’s unusual show of emotion, but one fan, in particular, took issue with Rae’s inclusion in a race-based political skit.
The sketch, entitled, “Your Voice Chicago”, made jest of the difficulties involved in seeking to support a scant pool of black candidates running for elected office.
Keenan Thompson hosts the faux daytime show in which an increasingly frustrated Rae jumps through numerous logical hoops to support questionable African-American candidates. The premise itself remained narrow until the skits very end when Thompson’s mention of Kanye West’s presidential bid sparks a response from a finally-broken Rae, “F him”.
The last-second quip implying Kanye is the exception to “Rooting for everybody black”, did not go over particularly well with the star.
His already tenuous relationship with SNL has swayed between him serving as a musical guest, to him rapping “Fuck SNL and the whole cast. Tell ‘em Yeezy said they could kiss my whole ass.”, to his famously incoherent rant in support of Donald Trump.
Still, West reserved his criticism to the show itself, and not Rae, saying “Ive always said SNL uses black people to hold other black people back My heart goes out to Issa Rae I’m praying for her and her family I know that the twenty years of service that I’ve paid on the entertainment field has furthered our ability to be more successful.”
[via]