In a TikTok he posted when he was 17, ZUEZEU dismissed the notion of white privilege.
Attitudes regarding race shared by ZUEZEU on social media several years ago are catching up to the recent breakout DJ and producer. After they resurfaced, his page on the United Talent Agency website now leads to a dead link, his name no longer appears on the Lost Lands 2024 lineup, and his manager, Paul Campbell, has stopped representing him.
Among the videos that have resurfaced are one apparently uploaded to TikTok when ZUEZEU (real name Reef Shaw) was 17. In it, he criticized institutions like Black History Month, Black Entertainment Television, and Black Lives Matter.
“I’m so sick of hearing about white privilege and entitlement,” Shaw said in the video. “If you’re of any color and you live in this country, you are automatically entitled, you are automatically privileged, and you’re automatically the freest person in the world with the most opportunity at your disposal.”
While the video mostly challenges the notion of systematic racism, other content points to him having held racist attitudes in the more classic definition. Los Angeles artist LA Riots posted videos to his Instagram Story that appear to show Shaw imitating an Indian accent and making a Nazi salute gesture.
One post from the Instagram account @ReefShaw seemingly mocked a photo of a Black person. In a statement shared on official ZUEZEU social media platforms, Shaw claimed that the Instagram account belongs to an impersonator. “I was not the creator of that page or affiliated with it and I have tried everything to report this account and get it taken down since 2019,” he wrote.
Shaw’s statement also included an apology for his previous commentary. “I was totally ignorant and I’m sorry,” reads a passage. “My video hurt and offended a lot of people by being dismissive of their real struggles, and I’m so sorry to the black community as well as other marginalized communities I offended.”
Paul Campbell, who managed Shaw prior to this week, initially shared a statement defending him on X but deleted it shortly after posting it. On a phone call with EDM Identity, he shared that additional information had come to light after he made the post that changed how he saw the situation.
Neither Lost Lands nor United Talent Agency have responded to EDM Identity’s request for comment at the time of writing.
We here at EDM Identity would like to remind our readers that disco, house, bass music, and countless other genres of dance music are rooted in the Black community. We maintain that white participants in dance culture owe a debt of gratitude to this historically marginalized group.
Read ZUEZEU’s full statement:
A previous version of this article mistakenly called ZUEZEU Hawaiian. It has also been amended to mention additional video content that surfaced.
