John Amos Weighs In On Snoop Dogg’s Comments About Roots Remake (AUDIO)

THE ORIGINAL KUNTA ADDRESSES THE BOYCOTT REQUEST

(AllHipHop News) Snoop Dogg made headlines across the internet when he called for a boycott of the new rendition of the Roots miniseries.

The West Coast rap legend took issue with the entertainment industry making another story centered around slavery. The 76-year-old actor starred as Kunta Kinte in the original 1977 version of Roots.

“Each generation should be at least superficially exposed to it, if not in depth, so things have more meaning and more relevance in regards to where we are as a society now,” Amos said to ABC Radio about Snoop’s comments. “If you don’t know your history, you can’t learn from it.

“I think it’s good that it’s being retold in the new version of Roots,” Amos added. “But again, I think their work is cut out for them because people have so many choices today and quite frankly there is an aversion to looking back at our history and repeating it.”

While the first episode of the Roots remake did not draw in the incomparable 130 million viewers as the original, the History channel 2016 production collected the biggest overall audience for a cable miniseries opening in three years.

On Monday evening, 5.3 million people watched the first airing of Roots over the History, A&E, and Lifetime simulcast. The series based on Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family collected a total of 8.5 million viewers during the whole night including re-airings.