Earlier today, NME published their latest issue focusing on depression and mental health awareness. All good so far. Except, they used Stormzy—who's recently been in the press discussing his own issues with depression in the past—as the cover star for the issue. The issue, which also features Bastille and Lady Gaga speaking on the subject of mental health, initially got a positive response. However, once Stormzy took to Twitter to point out that not only had the free weekly magazine not approached him for his permission, they'd been trying to get the rapper on their cover for some time and—in Stormzy's opinion—this is how they achieved that goal.
This isn't the first time they've misrepresented UK rappers either. Last summer, Giggs' Landlord was met with a bizarre review that both mistakenly insinuated talk of rape and gave it a positive review of 4/5. The online review has since been amended.
We've posted the main bulk of the thread but this only really started a couple of hours ago and is still unfolding. NME's response is at the bottom.
The NME has since responded:
