Daniel Caesar has revealed the pushback he received for defending YesJulz “forever changed” the trajectory of his “whole life.”
Back in 2019, Caesar, who recently followed his Son of Spergy album with a return to NPR’s Tiny Desk series, drunkenly stepped up to defend Julz following cultural appropriation accusations.
Amid the controversy, the social media personality and former Ye associate was called out for a 2017 X post she shared which included an image of a t-short that read “N***as lie a lot.” Julz, who is white, apologized for the post.
Asked about the controversy surrounding his defense of Julz during an appearance on The Breakfast Club on Friday (January 16), Caesar explained his 2019 remarks as coming from a place of internalizing “everything” while encouraging others to do the same.
“As time has passed, I’m like, ‘Oh, they were 100 percent right,'” he said. “When you accept this type of behavior from people that throughout history have exemplified to you that they hate you, and then you accept the behavior to get out of the circumstances that you’re in, it’s undignified. You’re giving up your own dignity.”
Previously, Caesar explained, this way of thinking “never crossed my mind,” which he attributed to his younger years.
“When I look at YesJulz, I see an orphan girl that wants to be Black,” he added deeper into the interview, during which he got pushback from the Breakfast Club hosts in response to certain elements of his larger argument.
“I’m like, damn, that’s so mean, bro. I felt bad for her, especially being a Black kid that grew up only surrounded by white people. The way she grew up, what is she supposed to do? She’s trying to embody what she understands.”
Caesar went on to say that his initial defense of Julz was “meant to happen,” as it ultimately led to him coming to “this understanding of what’s going on in myself and in the world around me.” He also admitted he was “naive” in his initial remarks, adding that he remains grateful for what he said he’s learned in subsequent years.
“It forever changed the trajectory of my whole life, for sure,” Caesar, who previously apologized for his 2019 remarks, said. “I just, I thought I was being honest with myself and I didn’t realize how much anger and hatred I had in my own heart. … For the world around me, and for myself.”
Elsewhere during his Breakfast Club chat, Caesar offered a summary of how he views humanity at large, arguing that dropping acid can help one realize the inherent interconnectedness of everything.
“You know, you drop some acid and you’re like, ‘Oh, we’re actually all one,'” he said. “We’re all just different leaves on a tree. The separation that we think we feel, it’s mercy. It’s mercy because the reality is that there is only one spirit and it’s floating out in space and it’s alone. The reality of existence is that we’re alone.”
