Lil Wayne wants to see less talk and more action to prevent police brutality. During an Instagram Live chat with Fat Joe, Wayne spoke to the ways in which protests often fail to effect lasting change, saying, “We have to stop placing the blame on the whole force and the whole everybody or a certain race or everybody with a badge… And if we want to place the blame on anybody, it should be ourselves for not doing more than what we think we’re doing.”
In Wayne’s mind, much of the issue of continued police violence against people of color — especially Black people — comes from lack of follow-through. As he told Fat Joe, “Some people put a tweet out and they think they did something. Some people wear a shirt and they think they did something. What you gonna do after that? Did you actually help the person? Did you actually help the family? Did you actually go out there and do something? So, if I ain’t about to do all that, then I ain’t about to do nothing. I’ll pray for ya.”
He elaborated on his view by pointing out that, “What we need to do is we need to learn about it more. If we wanna scream about something, know what we’re screaming about. If we wanna protest about something, know what we’re protesting about. Because if we wanna get into it, there’s a bunch of facts that we think we know that we don’t know. … We scream about things that, sometimes, they really ain’t true.”
Although awkwardly worded, Wayne’s words reflect another rapper’s statement about the ongoing uprisings. Earlier today, Cardi B posted a video to her own Instagram explaining her point of view and while she initially seemed more empathetic than Wayne, she also called for more direct political action. “Another way for the people to take power… it’s by voting… We can vote for mayors, we can vote for judges, and we can also vote for D.A.s (district attorneys)… They have the power to prosecute these cops.”
Wayne says that he’s educating himself on the subject, so if a hip-hop political awakening is on the horizon, there may be no better leader than one of the most influential figures the culture has had for well over two decades. However, should Wayne be on his way to encourage direct political action, he may want to work on that presentation a little.
Watch Wayne’s full interview with Fat Joe above.
