Polish TV present sparks outrage after blackface utilized in Kendrick Lamar impersonation

Sep 12, 2023 at 4:15 PM

The common programme Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo – identified elsewhere as Your Face Sounds Familiar – featured singer Kuba Szmajkowski performing Lamar’s monitor Humble in blackface with faux cornrows and a beard.

Szmajkowski additionally used the N-word, which was not censored in the course of the broadcast on Saturday.

The singer went on to win the episode and a prize of £1,843, which might be donated to charity.

Szmajkowski, 21, has greater than 163,000 Instagram followers and shared clips on his account of the make-up group overlaying his face in brown make-up and attaching textured hair to his head and face.

White actor Pola Gonciarz additionally carried out as Beyoncé with artificially darkened pores and skin.

A touch upon the actor’s Instagram web page learn: “This is so incredibly misguided and ignorant. Blackface shouldn’t be done ever, anywhere. We should not put people’s skin colour on like costumes.”

Another stated: “Shocking that this kind of racism was allowed on TV in 2023.”

The origins of using blackface date again to the nineteenth century within the US, when white actors referred to as minstrel performers would paint their faces black and carry out racist routines mimicking black folks. It is taken into account racist, demeaning and offensive.

The Standard has contacted Endemol Shine Poland, the present’s manufacturing firm, for remark.

It will not be the primary time that the programme has featured contestants in blackface. In 2021, the present drew criticism when a white contestant darkened their pores and skin throughout a efficiency of a Kanye West track.