Photo: Instagram
Culture vulture or artist?
By Bernadette Giacomazzo — Written on Jun 23, 2020
Born Julieanna Goddard, the DJ known as "YesJulz" first shot to fame thanks to her popularity on the social media site, Snapchat.
She's someone whose mere existence upsets black women — and, we postulate, for good reason. She doesn't seem to so much pay tribute to black culture as she does swipe from it, which leads her to earn the tag "culture vulture." In fact, rumors have surfaced she may have gone to the extreme of getting plastic surgery to have more "black-like" features.
So who is YesJulz, and did she get plastic surgery to look more like a Black woman?
Dubbed "Snapchat Royalty" by The New York Times, YesJulz has been called out on other social media platforms for her microaggressions towards black women, including adopting mannerisms native to African-American culture, dropping the N-word, and seeming to have an abject hatred for black women.
Let's look at what we know about YesJulz and the "culture vulture" claims, including whether she got plastic surgery to look more like a black woman.
1. She's been around celebrities for a while.
According to The New York Times, thanks to YesJulz's "digital native" audience, she's earned a chance to be around celebrities at places like the NBA All-Star Games. She even got name-checked in a Lil Uzi Vert song called "Wit My Crew X 1987," where the rapper says his girl "looks like YesJulz."
2. YesJulz was the victim of an extortion attempt.
The Miami Herald reports that a few years ago, two people tried to "shake down" YesJulz for money — including Hencha Voigt, who used to star on the E! show WAGS. "Voigt, 29, and Wesley Victor, 33, are accused of extortion, conspiracy to extort and the unlawful use of a phone. According to prosecutors, Voigt used her iPhone to contact YesJulz’s assistant, Imani Simmons, to notify her that “someone had hacked” the celebrity’s phone. Voigt even sent screenshots and clips of the videos," reported the outlet.
3. She came under fire for releasing a freestyle song that seemed to attack black women.
According to Genius, YesJulz started "feeling herself" when she was assigned to manage 070 Shake (an artist on the GOOD Music label), so she thought it would be a wise idea to release a freestyle of her own.
"Because my ass is fat and my skin ain’t black, I’m the vulture that you’re huntin', Yet they never do nothing, they never give back, They keep killing blacks," went just a few of her many ill-advised lyrics.
Check out the full freestyle, and her follow-up apology below.
4. This prompted BET.com to call for YesJulz to be 'canceled.'
Who can blame them? Calling the social media personality "NahJulz" (HA!), BET.com detailed a full list of her many slights against black people, and specifically, black women, while demanding she be canceled. "We haven’t forgotten about her 2017 incident when she tweeted a photo of a crop top that read, '[N-word] lie a lot,'" and posed the question of whether she should wear it to a music festival she was hosting.
5. Daniel Caesar tried to defend YesJulz, and it didn't go well for him.
The Root reports that Daniel Caesar took to social media in a since-deleted drunken rant to defend YesJulz. This, of course, was right before his new album dropped. Want to take a guess how many albums Daniel Caesar sold after that rant? Not many, folks. Not many at all.
6. She was even accused of getting plastic surgery to look more like a black woman.
She denies having plastic surgery, and especially plastic surgery to look more like a black woman. But see for yourself:
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, and photographer whose work has appeared in People, Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and more. She is also the author of The Uprising series.