Iggy Azalea-Loving Americans Aren’t Ready For A Tupac Musical Says Saul Williams
The Tupac-inspired musical Holler If Ya Hear Me closed on Sunday after only 55 performances and a month on Broadway. The show starred Saul Williams, who talked to Rolling Stone about the musical’s closing and put the blame on a lot of people. First, he tackled the helpful Broadway ticket-selling TKTS workers for being honest about the quality of the show and the reviewers for “something deeply embedded in a lot of the reviews that went deeper than just a dislike of the play,” also known as racism. He finally landed on what’s probably the real reason: Iggy Azalea. “There is no disconnect between this and Iggy Azalea, an Australian girl rapping with a southern accent, being Number One on the charts. It’s all related to where we are right now as a culture and within the culture of the arts.” While there is some argument to be made for America’s propensity for rappers like Azalea and Macklemore, it’s a leap to blame the show’s failure on that. It’s more likely that no one wanted to see it because by pretty much all accounts, it was very bad and uninspired. Oh well, life goes on and all “twenty-six thousand people” that Williams said gave a standing ovation will just remember Holler as a fond, distant memory.