Azealia Banks says Bull Ring’s ‘Wuhan wet market’ fish stalls made her ill

The US rapper Azealia Banks has accused Birmingham’s fish market of making her ill, comparing it to a “Wuhan wet market”.

In an unlikely intervention, the American star posted on X that city officials needed to “do something” about the stalls before comparing the market to the site in China identified as the place where the Covid pandemic most likely began.

Banks, 33, said she was convinced her visit to the market, in the city’s Bull Ring, led to her becoming ill, resulting in two days “sweating that shit out”.

She wrote: “Sidebar. The city officials in Birmingham, UK, need to do something about the fish market at the Bull Ring market. It’s giving putrid pathogen Wuhan wet market tease and just being in there I caught some shit.

“Just spent the last two days bathing, massaging, drinking tea sweating that shit out. That’s not cool b.”

The rapper, from Harlem in New York, is known for her high-profile public feuds with the likes of Elon Musk and the British rock band The Stone Roses. But going toe-to-toe with Birmingham city council over alleged health and safety issues relating to a fish market was an unexpected development.

In a further tweet, Banks clarified that she had stumbled upon the market while looking for a beauty supply shop in the city. She wrote: “I was looking for some falsely advertised beauty supply shop I saw on Yelp, and it was this little stand inside a outdoor building with this rank ass fish market boofin up the whole space. I wasn’t like, on tour trying to buy raw fish.”

The indoor fish market dates back to the 1800s and sells a range of traditional and exotic fish, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables. However, stall owners were told earlier this month that the site’s owners would be applying to demolish the market and build a mixture of student accommodation and apartments. If the plans are approved the council would no longer control the market, with traders being compensated and moved out, the Times reported.

It is far from the first time that Banks has caused controversy on social media. She was suspended from X, then called Twitter, in 2016 after a series of racially charged tweets attacking the singer and former One Direction star Zayn Malik.

She also used the social media website to call Australian live music audiences “terrible”, “violent” and “belligerent”.