Polish TV present faces backlash after singers in blackface impersonate Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar

A Polish music expertise present is dealing with a backlash for that includes contestants in blackface impersonating Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce.

Singer Kuba Szmajkowski was topped the winner of the second episode of Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo – the Polish model of the worldwide franchise Your Face Sounds Familiar – on Saturday after performing Lamar‘s monitor Humble.

The singer wore blackface make-up and in addition had cornrows, and shared photographs of him on the brink of 163,000 followers on Instagram. During his efficiency, he reportedly additionally used the N-word.

Performing Beyonce‘s If I Were A Boy, fellow contestant Pola Gonciarz additionally darkened her pores and skin to carry out.

Many social media customers have criticised the present and the contestants – calling using blackface racist, disgusting and offensive.

“Google ‘blackface’ and learn from your mistake. It’s 2023,” one Instagram person commented on one among Szmajkowski’s posts.

Sky News has chosen to not use pictures from the present that includes contestants in blackface.

Neither the contestants nor the present, which additionally featured impersonations of stars together with Ed Sheeran and Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, have commented publicly on the criticism but.

But following an analogous backlash over a contestant performing in blackface in 2021, producers issued an announcement saying the programme “tries to show great performances, which strive to be as close to the original as possible” and highlighted different tributes to artists together with Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder.

It continued: “The intention of each star performing on the show, as well as of the whole production team, is to recreate the original performance in the most precise manner, while honouring the original artist.”

Sky News has contacted representatives for each contestants, in addition to Endemol Shine Poland, which produces the collection, for remark.