(AllHipHop News) Lil Wayne sparked a controversy this week when his verse on Future’s “Karate Chop (Remix)” began circulating the net. Wayne has a line on the song were he makes a reference to the Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American from Chicago, who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955.
“Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels/Beat that p—y up like Emmett Till,” rapped Lil Wayne on the song.
Till’s surviving family members put out a statement saying that they felt the line was offensive and disrespectful, and wanted the song to be edited so that was not any mention of Till’s name.
Airickca Gordon-Taylor, director of the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation, told the Chicago-Sun Times, “My agenda is not to be disrespectful to Lil Wayne, even as much as I feel he’s been disrespectful to my family. We just want Emmett’s name removed from that song.”
Gordan-Taylor reached out to civil rights leader Jesse Jackson to help her foundation contact representatives of Lil Wayne to discuss getting the Till line removed. Jackson was able to conduct a conference call with the head of Future’s record label, L.A. Reid.
Reid told Jackson that the version of the song featuring Lil Wayne was leaked, and that the official release will not have the Emmett Till reference. The Mamie Til Mobley Memorial Foundation Facebook page also posted that Reid personally apologized to the family.
The AP is reporting that Epic Records released a statement Wednesday evening saying that the label is attempting to pull the leaked remix version of “Karate Chop.”
“Out of respect for the legacy of Emmett Till and his family and the support of the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. …we are going through great efforts to take down the unauthorized version,” the statement read. Epic does plan to release an official version of Future’s song without the lyrics referring to Till.
The legacy of Emmett Till is a very sensitive topic for many in the African-American community. While visiting family in Mississippi, Till was murder by local residents for whistling at white woman. The killers shot Till in the head, gouged his eyes out, and wrapped his body in barbed wire before tossing him into the Tallahatchie River.
Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother, insisted the her son have an open casket funeral so the world could see the bigotry and violent nature of the segregated south. The horrific pictures of Till’s beaten body were widely published in the black media and helped initiate the Civil Rights Movement.