Toronto’s Jully Black blasts hater after one-word anthem change at NBA All-Star Game

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Over a week after Jully Black changed the lyrics to O Canada when she performed the anthem at the NBA All-Star Game in Utah, the R&B singer is still getting hateful messages on social media.

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“O Canada! Our home on native land,” Black sang in front of the sold-out Salt Lake City crowd. The original lyrics to the song are, “Our home and native land.”

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The switch divided fans, with response to Black’s subtle swap quickly becoming a top trending item on social media.

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“Love it. Let’s make it a permanent and official change,” one person tweeted, with Public Enemy rapper Chuck D calling her rendition “the most soulful O Canada I’ve ever heard.”

But plenty of people criticized Black’s change, with one user on social media calling the change “disrespectful,” with another declaring she “needs to be cancelled.”

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“As a songwriter, I didn’t want to disrespect the songwriter, but I also realize that we are on the land, we don’t own it, it’s not ours,” Black told CTV’s Your Morning the following week. “I wish I could kind of sit with the songwriter and say, ‘Hey, you might have got the facts wrong. And could we do a bit of a remix?’”

In a separate conversation with CBC’s The National, Black, who has collaborated with Nas, Destiny’s Child and Sean Paul over the years, dismissed the criticism saying she “sang the facts.”

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“We are walking, breathing, living, experiencing life on native land. On Indigenous land,” Black said.

The Juno winner is still drawing attention for the change, sharing a hate-filled email she received Sunday night with her followers.

“While living in a white majority country, you have the audacity to single-handedly change our national anthem! HOW DARE YOU!!” the critic, who Black identified as Terencia Capleton, wrote. “Who the f— do you think you are?”

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“This is what I’m getting as a BORN and raised Canadian,” the platinum-selling artist responded, adding the hashtag #HateRunsDeep.

The scathing email, which was addressed to the singer’s executive assistant and the Canadian Stage Company, went on to call Black a “cry baby” and the N-word. The author also threatened Black, writing, “You watch what happens to you if you ever try and pull this s— again.”

Throat singer Tanya Tagaq supported Canada’s Queen of R&B, with the 2014 Polaris Music Prize winner writing in the comments, “It’s word one of one song and it’s the truth.”

“This is disgusting. The subtle and powerful change you included in the anthem is longer overdue,” another person wrote.

“Change makers always rattle cages of the weak,” a third chimed.

When asked by TSN’s Kayla Grey about the change, the Seven Day Fool singer said she had reached out to some Indigenous friends and asked them about swapping the lyrics.

“I got some feedback, and so I really dissected the lyrics, to really sing it with intention,” said Black. “Now I’m singing it in a whole other meaningful way.”

In her chat with The National, Black recalled her friend’s emotional reaction to the change.

“I didn’t know how much this would mean to him. But now I do.”

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