Rolling Stones drop ‘Brown Sugar’ from US tour over lyrics depicting slavery
- Rolling Stones cut 1971 hit song from current US tour
- In recent years critics have criticised ‘Brown Sugar’ as racist
The Rolling Stones may have dubbed their tour “No Filter”, but the iconic rock band has filtered out one of their most popular songs from their set list.
The band retired their 1971 hit song Brown Sugar from their current tour, for now, over “conflicts” surrounding the controversial lyrics that depict slavery, rape and drugs, guitarist Keith Richards confirmed to The Los Angeles Times.
“You picked up on that, huh?” Richards told the outlet after he was asked why the band has refrained from playing it on the US tour. He added that he doesn’t understand the controversy.
“I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is,” Richards said. “Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it. At the moment I don’t want to get into conflicts with all of this (expletive).”
According to Genius’ song interpretation, “Brown Sugar runs through different white and black sexual interactions”, including non-consensual sex between a slave and slave owner, who had “total ownership of black women but also had total physical and sexual access”.
