American Afropunk band Fuck U Pay Us (FUPU) started a crowdfund this week following a vicious attack during their current tour of the UK that left them in “extreme emotional pain”.

According to a post on their official Facebook page, the group were allegedly robbed, beaten and sexually harassed by a “skinhead-looking white man on meth” in London on Wednesday night. As a result they have cancelled all of their remaining shows and appealed for donations to help them get back to LA.

FUPU, made up of Uhuru Moor (vocals/guitar), Jasmine Nyende (vocals), Ayotunde Osareme (bass) and Tianna Nicole (drums), formed in South L.A last year. A black, all-female, mostly queer band, they write raw, radical punk songs that their peers can relate to.

They addressed the incident with typical passion in their Facebook post: “Last night in London, FUPU was attacked by a 6'5", 300 pound white man under the influence of something after his girlfriend grabbed Uhuru's purse off the table we were sharing and after they invaded Jasmine's space by performing sexual acts while touching her. One of our members has a broken nose & other parts of her face.”

It continued: “Fuck this cop that was trying to reprimand us instead of the fucker that punched Tianna in the face. Here she is smiling, cracking jokes while Tianna's blood is in the streets. Fuck white supremacy, fuck England, fuck the queen, fuck racists and misogynists fuck telling a Black woman to calm down when she is covered in her friend's blood, fuck anyone that helped that misogynist asshole get away, fuck anyone that just stood there as three women fought a 6'4 massive ass white man by our fucking selves and did nothing but take photos. We are in extreme emotional pain but Tianna needs to heal/be treated.”

A later post clarified their use of the word "skinhead" to describe their alleged attacker: "In the American context we were trying to highlight that this man had hatred towards us because we were Black womyn (misogynoir) however, we posted in the midst of the incident and also were ignorant to the British subculture of skinheads being a diverse non-hate group."

The band, who were supposed to be in the UK until 13 July, are no longer seeking donations to help fly them home, but have put out Tianna's email address (tianna_sfla@yahoo.com) for people who would like to donate to cover any post-trauma, post-surgery costs or to send her well-wishes.

They also included a link for "reparations donations" which would be used to create a safe space for black women to learn self defence.

This incident follows a string of high-profile hate crimes against people of colour in the UK following Brexit and the recent terror attacks. 

Dazed has reached out to FUPU for comment