KSI: ‘renaissance man of digital age’ in racism storm

YouTube star KSI has apologised for using a racial slur during a recent video, saying there was “no excuse”.

The British rapper turned boxer, who co-owns the Prime energy drink with influencer Logan Paul, was playing a game of Countdown with his YouTube collective, the Sidemen. He spelled out a derogatory term for someone of Pakistani origin, to his “evidently amused” fellow performers, said Variety.

The video sparked widespread outrage on social media over the weekend, particularly from the South Asian community.

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KSI, real name Olajide William Olatunji, tweeted less than an hour later: “I wanna apologise for saying a racial slur in a recent Sidemen video. There’s no excuse, no matter the circumstances, I shouldn’t have said it and I’m sorry.”

The video has since been removed, although tweets from the Sidemen’s official account promoting the video are still active, said The Guardian. The Sidemen also apologised on Monday for the “completely unacceptable” slur.

KSI, 29, said he would be taking himself off social media for a while. He has also been the victim of extensive online racism.

Who is KSI?

KSI (which stands for Knowledge Strength Integrity) is known to his friends and family as JJ. A Londoner of Nigerian origin, he had what The Times called “a very traditional Nigerian upbringing, raised on jollof rice and yam and church – only in Watford”.

Being one of only two black pupils at the private school he attended made the young KSI feel introverted, turning to computer games and online chat rooms. He began uploading gaming commentary videos, and was soon earning enough to drop out of sixth-form college – reportedly more than his teacher.

After years of diss tracks and rap segments in his videos, KSI released a debut single Lamborghini in March 2015, and his full EP the following January, which charted at number one on the UK R&B chart. He has since released a breakthrough album, Dissimulation, which went platinum and included a track nominated for Song of the Year at the 2022 Brit Awards.

KSI “has developed huge cultural influence in recent years”, said The Guardian. His personal YouTube account has more than 20 million subscribers, with the Sidemen account boasting almost as many.

He is Britain’s biggest online star, said The Times: “a Renaissance man of the digital age”, who can earn a reported £250,000 for one sponsored video. In January, Amazon Prime released a documentary about his life, produced by Louis Theroux. He has also starred in a film and published a bestselling autobiography in 2015: I Am a Bellend.

KSI now splits his time between music and boxing, telling Men’s Health in an interview last year: “Boxing is bigger than ever these days. I get messages all the time from people, saying I’ve made them get into boxing, that they felt a bit lost and that boxing has given them some purpose.”

In 2018, KSI fought his fellow YouTube star Logan Paul in the first of two hugely hyped boxing bouts, before the pair combined their clout to promote Prime, the official drink of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). “The effect on hormonal boys has been a triumph of marketing,” said The Times.

Prime’s sports drink, Hydration, “has become an online sensation since being launched”, said the BBC, “with its limited UK availability causing a craze”.

Intense advertising combined with a restricted supply led to a perfect storm of demand. Supermarket staff struggled to hold back shoppers, with reports of chaotic queues and “an aggressive secondary market at schools around Britain”, said Insider.

No stranger to controversy?

KSI has been widely criticised for sexism, misogyny and appearing to trivialise sexual assault with his so-called “rape face”, a recurrent theme of his earlier videos in which he would shout into the camera: “You’re getting raped today!” In 2012, he was also accused of sexually harassing a female staff member at a Eurogamer convention in 2012, and was banned from future events. In March 2021, he also tweeted an apology for using “transgender slurs”.

Apologising for his past content, KSI told The Guardian in 2020: “Obviously I’m not proud of it. But whenever you post something on the internet, it’s there forever. So you can hide from it, pretend it doesn’t exist. Or, you know, hit it head on, realise why it was a mistake.”

Following the furore around his latest video, the YouTuber tweeted: “I’ve always said to my audience that they shouldn’t worship me or put me on a pedestal because I’m human.” Announcing that he was going to take a break from social media, he added: “I’m not perfect, I’m gonna mess up in life, and lately I’ve been messing up a lot.”