Azealia Banks has claimed that Birmingham’s fish market made her ill, comparing it to a “Wuhan wet market”.
The controversial US rapper, 33, shared a post to X/Twitter ordering city officials to “do something” about the stalls, as she said she had spent the last two days recovering from an unspecified illness.
On 26 September she wrote: “Sidebar. The city officials in Birmingham, UK, need to do something about the fish market at the bullring market. It’s giving putrid pathogen Wuhan wet market tease and just being in there I caught some s***.
“Just spent the last two days bathing, massaging, drinking tea sweating that s*** out. That’s not cool b.”
The Wuhan wet market is a site in China that has been identified as the place where the Covid-19 pandemic most likely began. A recent scientific study published this month said it was beyond “reasonable doubt” that the virus originated there.
Banks responded to a follower: “I wasn’t even [planning on going there]. I was looking for some falsely advertised beauty supply shop I saw on Yelp and it was this little stand inside [an] outdoor building with this rank ass fish market boofin up the whole space.
“I wasn’t like, on tour trying to buy raw fish lmao.”
The Birmingham fish market dates back to the 1800s and sells a range of locally caught and exotic fish, as well as fresh produce such as fruit and vegetables.
Earlier this month, traders were told that their stalls could be demolished to make way for new homes, with a planning application submitted to develop the site into apartments or student accommodation.
The Independent has contacted Banks’s representative for comment.
Banks is notorious for engaging in high-profile feuds or else hurling insults at figures including fellow rappers Cardi B, Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea, British singers Lily Allen and Rita Ora, and Elon Musk.
She was suspended from X, then Twitter, in 2016 after posting a string of racist and homophobic comments aimed at former One Direction singer-turned solo star Zayn Malik.
Banks was also dropped from the Born & Bred music festival as a result of her remarks.
She later posted a full apology to Instagram apologising to Malik.
“Dear Zayn, There are no words that can fully express how sorry I am,” she said. “Recent events have taught me the importance of taking accountability for ones actions. I want and need to say I am sorry, I was wrong.
“As a Black woman, in America, I sometimes forget that there are words and comments that hurt other communities. At times, I am so consumed by my own struggle, and the struggle of my race, that I forget to consider the hardships other minorities continue to endure.
“Coming from an ethnicity that is largely discriminated against does not warrant a license to use derogatory, abusive terminology nor does it give me the right to make hurtful remarks.”
Banks recently concluded her first tour of the UK in more than five years, which took in shows at the O2 Academy in Brixton and the O2 Academy Bristol. She played the O2 Institute in Birmingham on Friday 20 September.
