British rap artist Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., most commonly known as Wiley, is facing a police investigation after a string of antisemitic comments appeared on his social media accounts, prompting his management to drop him.“If you work for a company owned by 2 Jewish men and you challenge the Jewish community in anyway of course you will get fired,” Wiley wrote and then added, “Infact [sic] there are 2 sets of people who nobody has really wanted to challenge #Jewish & #KKK but being in business for 20 years you start to undestand [sic] why.” In several other tweets, Wiley claimed that Jews control "the Law," and made several claims about Israel not being a Jewish country, "Listen to me Jewish community Israel is not your country I'm sorry."When confronted about his tweets, Wiley wrote "Anti Semetic? What's it called the way you rip us off in business then? What's that called when you tell us there is 1 rule for us and another rule for you lot? What's that called?" He added "Anti Semetic? Are u stupid? Do you know what these people do to the world?"Police confirmed they had received complaints about Wiley.
"We are aware of reports of alleged anti-Semitic comments posted on social media and will look into the matter," a spokeswoman for London's Metropolitan Police said.
Twitter has deleted some anti-Semitic statements on Wiley's account, but others remain, drawing criticism from other users of the social media platform.
"Even for Twitter this is shocking," said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.
Wiley, 41, whose real name is Richard Cowie, released a number one single in Britain in 2012 and had several other top 10 hits. He received a UK government honour for his contribution to music in 2018.
As a result of Wiley's antisemitic tweets, John Woolf, who had been the rapper's manager for a number of years, said that he had "cut all ties" with the rapper."Following Wiley's anti semitic tweets today we at @A_ListMGMT have cut all ties with him. There is no place in society for antisemitism," Woolf said on Twitter.
