Dev Hynes and Julian Casablancas have worked together a number of times, and it seems like the two musicians are friends. So the new Oyster Magazine piece in which the Blood Orange mastermind and the Strokes frontman interview each other, touching on subjects like choreography, old bands, Michael Jackson vs. Prince, and their experiences with racism, is an interesting read. But Hynes, an artist who has no problems speaking out about racism but is understandably getting tired of having to do so, isn’t happy about the way the article turned out. According to Hynes, Oyster Mag agreed to post the interview unedited but ended up removing “everything to do with race and my past that I discussed.” Although he’s been taking a break from social media, Hynes posted a full response statement to his Tumblr, and you can read that below:

Oyster Magazine.

End of last year Julian and I had a conversation for a magazine (that I don’t need to name) in which we openly had a conversation for an hour, talking about music, racial politics and our past. This magazine in question didn’t want to put the interview out without it being edited … fair enough. So we took it elsewhere.

Oyster Magazine agreed to post it un edited.

They just posted the interview, I don’t know who it was involved, magazine, publicist … so i won’t fully point blame in any true direction right now … but they fully edited and censored it without telling us. Cutting out everything to do with race and my past that I discussed, which was not easy for me to do. Why? So they can have another bullshit piece to add to the noise of the internet? Keep us talking about prince & MJ, of course … but let’s take out the section about the million man march … Let’s keep the section talking about first bands we played in … but take out the part where i talk in detail about being assaulted by security and having my knee knocked out of place at Lollapalooza.

It’s very disheartening … & yet again left with the feeling of a lack of trust & hope. In fact, i’m certain that you don’t even see what the real problem is here? I’m sure most people won’t. It’ll be seen as “Dev lashes out at Oyster Magazine” or “why is he moaning about being featured in a magazine …” it’s not about that to me, I could care less about any of that shit, none of that matters on a day to day in the real world … but the idea of being able to speak freely about things that I think are bothersome to me & to JC, and to others, when told that I could … was really special to me. I don’t do many articles/interviews because it’s all the same noise, not even slightly an ego thing, in fact it’s more like the opposite. So I was happy when this opportunity arose to talk openly and un-edited with a friend.

I spoke about such personal things, things that weren’t easy for me because I thought that it could be helpful maybe for someone somewhere out there, as well as myself, and you just took it out … like it was nothing … nothing but a distraction to your own world distraction.

You had a chance to really add to something, and show people that there are real conversations taking place in the world right now, but you chose otherwise. And prove yet again that the censorship of a free speaking Black man is of less value to you than retweets.

Check out the Oyster Mag piece here.