Afrikaans singer Jay du Plessis labels Trevor Noah a 'race hater'

Afrikaans pop star Jay du Plessis has slammed SA-born comedian Trevor Noah and labelled him a "racist" over the inside Xhosa joke he made at the Oscars. 

Trevor took to the Oscars' stage on Sunday to present Black Panther as one of the Best Picture nominees at this year's awards ceremony and mocked those who thought Wakanda may be a real place by using the Xhosa phrase "abelungu abazi ubu ndiyaxoka".

In his speech, Trevor said it meant "in times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart."

However, the phrase actually means "white people don't know I'm lying".

Jay took to Twitter on Wednesday to share his thoughts on the speech that has gone viral.

In a tweet that has since been deleted, Jay called Trevor a "race hater". 

"Trevor Noah is a race hater who promotes the anti-white feeling in the US. Talented and deservedly rich, but just a hater and racist."

Jay told TshisaLIVE on Thursday that he stood by much of what he said, including his belief that Trevor is leaning "towards discriminating against the minority in SA".

"To be clear. I am very proud as a South African that one of ours has reached such incredible heights. Like I said in my tweet, 'talented and deservedly rich' and I used to be a big fan. But it's my personal opinion that Trevor has started to lean towards discriminating against the minority in SA."

He said that this was his personal view but had tweeted it to start a conversation on the subject.

"This is not the opinion of any project, group or franchise that I'm involved with and was meant to be a conversation starter to see what other people think about the subject. I deleted the post as, in retrospect, it seemed like it offended some people and that was never my intent."