UPDATED 06/16/19 9:20 p.m. ET: DJ Akademiks posted a series of Instagrams that refute Tory Lanez's claims that the video's directors made decisions based on the color of the women's skin. "The women who were in the #torylanez video and also the directors are claiming it didn’t go down the way Tory described it on Instagram," he wrote. One of the women in the video wrote that Lanez said to cut the video "to make it appear as if it had something to do with race."
See the original story below.
Tory Lanez has alleged that while on a music video shoot, the directors tried to substitute a woman with a darker complexion for a lighter-skinned woman—and Lanez wasn’t okay with it.
The Canadian artist took to Instagram to share a behind-the-scenes clip of him being filmed for Nafe Smallz’s “Good Love” video, which Complex premiered on Thursday. In Lanez’s BTS video, a black woman is seen dancing next to him, but it looks like whoever is behind the camera motions for her to be replaced with a fairer black woman.
Lanez stopped the shoot and brought the original woman back onto the set—and told the lighter-skinned woman that she’s beautiful. Filming then resumes with the original woman.
Tory included an impassioned caption with the video, writing that his experience is a continuous issue in the entertainment industry. He writes, “As a black man , Sometimes I’m going to joke about the black community just like we all do . BUT WHAT IM NOT GOING TO DO IS ALLOW ANY OF THESE DIRECTORS TO DE-VALUE OUR BLACK WOMEN,” adding that he’s seen directors “swap out our women of color for women of lighter complexion, or women with straighter hair ETC.”
He ends the caption saying, “IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS ARTIST TO STAND UP AND NOT LET THIS HAPPEN ... it's BEEN time to embrace our woman of color.”
