The work trip to the United States made this week by King William and King Maxima of the Netherlands has ended with controversy. This Monday, June 10, 2024, during the first of the four days of the visit, the couple was at Patchwerk Recording Studios, a hip hop music recording studio in Atlanta, and greeted the Dutch rapper Frenna (33 years old). What the sovereign did not know is that the singer had been convicted in 2017 for having sexual relations with a minor. At the end of the visit, the monarch described this behavior as unacceptable. He has also said that Frenna “has served her time and deserves a second chance.”
The trip took King William and Maxima to the states of Georgia and New York between June 10 and 14. In Atlanta, during their tour of the recording studio, the royal couple tested the sound mixing desk and posed for photos with Frenna and other musicians. The idea was to promote Dutch rap, and the queen gave Frenna greetings from her daughter, Princess Alexia, and her friends. They are all fans of her compositions. Hip hop is also culturally and economically important to Atlanta. Once the trip was over, and in the meeting with the press that closed these visits, the Dutch sovereign admitted that he “didn’t know beforehand about this chapter in the musician’s past.” He added that he considered his behavior “unacceptable and [como tal] We should not accept it.” On the other hand, “everyone who has been tried and served their sentence in the Netherlands has the right to a second chance. “This is how our rule of law works,” he recalled. Queen Máxima added that Frenna “has served and learned from her sentence.” Asked if the musician should be “canceled” for what he did, the king said this: “Cancel culture, we don’t do that.”
Of Ghanaian descent and born in The Hague, Frenna is the stage name of Francis Edusei, who has become one of the most listened to rappers in the Netherlands. Between 2016 and 2017, he was detained in Suriname (South America) for several months along with two other members of his group, SFB, for having had sexual relations with a minor. They also distributed images of what happened through social networks. Found guilty, the sentence was equivalent to the time spent in preventive detention and he was released. In 2019, he added more music streams on Spotify than any other colleague in his country: 325 million.
The controversy over what happened to Frenna coincides with the request for three years in prison by the Prosecutor’s Office for another Dutch rapper, 42-year-old Ali B., who is accused of two cases of rape and another two of sexual assault against three women. who were singers or former contestants of the national edition of the program The voice (The Voice). The rapper denies the facts, saying that “that’s not how I experienced” the situation.
The music sector in the Netherlands launched a program in 2023 called Taskforce Go! (Workgroup Come on!) to create a safe environment, after verifying that more than half of professionals have suffered from inappropriate behavior in the last five years. In 2022, the RTL television network temporarily suspended broadcasts of the contest The Voice due to alleged sexual harassment and abuse of power. Ali B was one of the judges on that program during the events now being judged.
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