Talib Kweli is steadfastly finalizing his new album, Prisoner of Consciousness, he took the opportunity to tell AllHipHop he thoughts on the Lil Wayne’s comments on Emmett Till, where the Young Money rapper made a disparaging comment about Emmett Till and women as well. The punchline said, “Beat that p****y up like Emmett Till.” Talib comments for the first time on the matter and says it extends beyond Lil Wayne and into general culture, selling out and embracing violators to create real change.
“My opinion, I think that Lil Wayne should apologize to the Till Family. But, its not for me to say, its for him to do. That’s what I would do. That’s what I think is the smart thing to do, especially since you apologized to LeBron for the Miami Heat thing. But, from my perspective, wherever he’s at with it in the world, and his mind space and the surroundings around him are not necessarily making him aware that he needs to apologize. The surroundings around him are making him aware that, “You know what? You live in Miami. You should apologize.” Do I think that’s a little backwards? Yeah. But, I think that its a little hypocritical of us to put that squarely on Lil Wayne’s shoulders.”
“We been listening to dudes talk about, “We gonna beat the pu**y up” records with all different sorts of metaphors before the Till family got affected. if we are going to encourage that and like it, we as a community gotta take the blame. I think its very convenient for people to take a certain line from a song that’s still creative. We’re not talking about censorship. We don’t wanna censor nobody. But I do think its a bit hypocritical. There is a line in the sand you have to draw. This is the part I find hypocritical. When you criticize Lil Wayne and it doesn’t stop. It becomes ‘He’s a monster and he’s destroying Hip-Hop. I wish he would die. I wish he would stop making records.’ When it goes to that, thats not something I can condone. And that will also make an artist say, ‘Well, f**k what you gotta say. My fans support me.’ What I think its the better way is through outreach and unity in Hip-Hop – finding the similarities rather than the differences. That’s why I work for these artists. For me, its art first. When you judge whether or not I should be working on an artist, the only thing you should judge is the song.”
Until Prisoner of Consciousness drops, check out Talib’s “Attack The Block Mixtape”
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