Nick Cannon wears 'whiteface' to promote new album 'White People Party Music'

Nick Cannon caused quite the controversy Monday after sharing a series of pictures and videos that showed him wearing whiteface on his Instagram account.

The pictures were supposed to depict the rapper's white alter ego Connor Smallnut, the persona he's using to promote his upcoming record White People Party Music, but instead they sparked an online debate over whether his makeup and actions were racist.

"This makes me mad," Instagram user dywannnnn commented on one of the images. "That actress who dressed blackface to be "Crazy eyes" for Halloween had to apologize when everyone freaked out....but nick cannon gets to hashtag white stereotypes and dress like a white guy? Go America!! Everyone makes a lot of sense."

The first photo, shared Monday, was captioned “It's official... I'm White!!!” and it included the hashtags: #GoodCredit #DogKissing #BeerPong #FarmersMarkets #FistPumping #CreamCheeseEating and #RacialDraft.

“This is so [expletive] offensive. What if Britney spears made herself black and put a pic up that says ‘it's official.. IM BLACK,’” another user wrote.

But Cannon didn't take offense from the comments, and later tweeted, "Hold up… What the [expletive] is “White Face”??? Did I just create a new term??? Nice!!! LOL."

"Damn I didn't know it was going to be this hard being White! ... I'm exhausted with all this "privilege" LOL #WhitePeopleProblems," he wrote later.

In the end, not everyone was offended by Cannon's antics.

"I'm mostly offended that @NickCannon as a white man is still better looking than I am. #madatnothing," wrote Twitter user @RobWagman.

"I love how offended people are by @NickCannon putting on white face. It's a brilliant way to market his album #whitepeopleproblems #kudos," tweeted @Maloricious.

Cannon himself seemed rather amused with the controversy.

"I love this conversation though. It’s showing a lot of people’s true colors… #punintended #wppm woooo!!!" he wrote on Twitter.

The rapper's second studio album White People Party Music will be released on April 1.

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