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Talib Kweli Is Off Twitter After Harassing One Woman for Weeks

Photo: Santiago Felipe/Getty Images

More than two weeks after he began harassing a 24-year-old woman on the platform, Talib Kweli is no longer on Twitter. As of July 23, the account @TALIBKWELI “doesn’t exist,†its page shows. Kweli maintained on Instagram that he “left @twitter for the greener pastures of @patreon,†but many suspect he was suspended for harassment. Beginning on July 6, he targeted Maya A. Moody for replying to a tweeted list of Black rappers who married Black women, pointing out that many of them married light-skinned women. In the days since, Kweli sent hundreds of tweets about Moody, even prompting her to put her account on private for a period. Kweli’s followers have sent her death threats, she said in a Twitter statement on July 16. Others had also reached out to her, she said, to add that they had been harassed by Kweli online in the past as well. “I am tired of men abusing their power and trying to silence me and other women,†she wrote at the time. “I am tired of sitting silently and idly by while black people are mistreated, and that includes at the hands of our own people.†Kweli is currently preparing to release a new album, Cultural Currency, on Patreon.

Talib Kweli Is Off Twitter After Harassing Woman for Weeks