Nas and Killer Mike have joined the array of rappers speaking out about race relations in the US following the Charleston murders last week, in which nine black worshippers were shot at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South Caroline city.
Nas made a lengthy post on Instagram, in which he noted: “As a black man, I find it difficult to understand that our biggest export (our American culture) comes from us. The people in the streets … The way the world dresses, talks, what they listen to, what they watch … That all comes from us. How can we be the ones responsible for America’s biggest export & fear for our lives like we shouldn’t belong here.” He called for “questions [to be] answered to get things back on the track of righteousness”.
Killer Mike of Run the Jewels, who has been increasingly voluble on the subject of black lives since the Ferguson killing and protests last year, spoke to The Fader about the Confederate flag, insisting: “An army took on the Union, an army lost. That nation, the Confederate states, lost. And if that flag – in terms of publicly or state-sponsored things, or local or county or city-sponsored things – should be forever wiped from the memory, because that side lost.”
He said he had no problem with Southerners displaying the flag on a personal basis, in their homes, on their license plates or on their clothing. “I have white friends who have the Confederate flag on their license plates and I have no issue with that, if they see that as a matter of heritage. But I do not think it should ever fly over a state, city, county building, or school, for the simple reason that it represents secession from the Union. It represented a part of the country trying to become a separate country from America.”
He said that as a child, the Confederate flag has been explained to him as a racist symbol, but insisted his objection to the flag was not about personal feelings of hurt, but his resentment about the honouring of “treacherous traitors”.
“That’s why I despise the rebel flag. Long live the South, and quickly die the Confederacy.”
Killer Mike called on people to boycott corporations who give financial support to politicians who support the flying of the Confederate flag.
Last weekend, both Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco addressed the shootings. West freestyled about racism during a live performance in Atlanta, while Lupe Fiasco posted on open letter to white supremacists on Instagram. “Supremacy is a lie white regularists tell to themselves in hopes that they can get a one way ticket to the top and hope we other colors overhear it. Here’s the bad news, ain’t no top,” he wrote.
