Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea responds to National Anthem jibes: ‘I don’t care, man’

Flea recently played a bass-only version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' at an historic basketball match

Red Hot Chili Peppers member Flea has responded to criticism of his bass-only rendition of the US national anthem at Kobe Bryant’s final game for the LA Lakers.

Prior to the historic basketball match on Wednesday night (April 13), Flea performed ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in front of 18,000 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Not everyone enjoyed Flea’s unusual take on the anthem, with comments on Twitter branding it “trash” and “as bad as the Lakers have been the last 3 years”, and one basketball fan writing: “We gotta deport Flea for that. It’s out of our hands.”

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Asked about the negative comments by TMZ, Flea replied: “I don’t care, man.”

“I know that people who like music liked it. I thought it was beautiful. I really don’t have any concern for little small minds that get frustrated when they get blown. I like the big minds,” he added.

Flea is a well-known LA Lakers fan and recently compared Kobe Bryant, who is set to retire having won five NBA championships with the team, to “Charlie Parker or John Coltrane or Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix” as a “master of his craft”.

Watch his response to the criticism of his US National Anthem performance below.

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