Mbabane (Swaziland) (AFP) - US soul and hip-hop singer Erykah Badu has hit back at human rights activists who called her a hypocrite for singing Happy Birthday to Swaziland's King Mswati III.
The US-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF), which described the king as a "corrupt tyrant", said her performance at the monarch's 46th birthday celebrations in the tiny Southern African country last Thursday contradicted her self-professed concern for human rights.
"I was not paid by the KING. I had no idea of the political climate," Badu said on her Twitter feed @fatbellybella in response to one critic.
"How could I? Why would I know this? You are an idiot," she wrote to more than one million followers.
According to Swaziland's state-run Observer newspaper American jeweller Jacob Arabo brought the Grammy award-winner to the country as a birthday gift for Mswati, considered Africa's last absolute monarch.
"I was payed nothing. I was a surprise guest. I gave them my own money. What's wrong with you people?" she tweeted.
HRF said Badu owed an explanation for her Swazi outing, but the singer and activist was unrepentant.
"All the people were smiling when I sang. I was smiling. We ALL felt good in that moment," she tweeted.
The Observer said Badu gave Mswati a $100-bill as a birthday present, as well as "a special stone which she said would uplift His Majesty's spirits when he was feeling down".
Mswati holds a tight grip on dissent in his tiny mountain kingdom, where criticism of the king is illegal.
Badu is not the first singer to run foul of rights activists.
Last year alone Maria Carey was criticised for performing for Angola's president while Jennifer Lopez was rapped for singing Happy Birthday to the leader of Turkmenistan.
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