NOTE: Graphic language below
Rapper Lil Wayne caused a lot of controversy last month when he claimed he never dealt with racism.
He told Fox Sports 1’s Undisputed that there was “no such thing as racism” because his concert audience had a lot of white fans. He also said millennials knew that racism wasn’t cool.
Instead of taking back those comments, Lil Wayne is clarifying what he meant. In an interview with the Associated Press, the New Orleans native reiterated his position that he never experienced racism.
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“It’s the world out there. It’s not a certain part or a certain kind of a certain culture or whatever of people, it’s people — those people out there in that crowd,” he said. “I’m blessed to have that opportunity, so with that said I can only be honest with such a thing, I have never witnessed racism.”
The A Milli hitmaker elaborates by stating that a white police officer saved his life. Lil Wayne recounts the infamous incident when he was 12 and accidentally shot himself in the chest.
“I was in the house police knocked on the door, I was right there. They knocked the door down, everybody jumped over my body to go get the guns and drugs and whatever they could find.” he says. “It took one guy to stop right there and cuss everybody that hopped over me out, saying: ‘What the f*** are you doing!?'”
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Lil Wayne describes how the other police officers said they called the ambulance and how the officer in charge responded.
“‘A f***ing ambulance? Do you not see this kid on the floor with this hole in his chest?'” Wayne says, as he recalls what was going on around him.
The Mr.Carter rapper said “Uncle Bob” rushed injured Lil Wayne to the hospital and stayed there until he heard the rapper would be all right.
“Yeah, he was a cop, and my life was saved by a white man,” Wayne said. “I don’t know what racism is. I know a good m*****f***** named Uncle Bob, though. He was white as snow. Them m*****f***** that hopped over me were blacker than me.”
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This powerful moment has shaped Lil Wayne’s entire view on racism. While he may not have dealt with it personally, he knows it exists.
Back in 2014, the Grammy-winning rapper publicly addressed the scandal that surrounded former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who made racist comments during a leaked phone conversation with his girlfriend.
The 3 Peat rapper starts his video response off with a pleasant “F**k you” before going into detail on his thoughts on the situation, saying, if he was a player, his pride wouldn’t allow him to play another game in a Clipper jersey.
“If I was a Clipper player, you wouldn’t see me on the court anymore in that uniform,” Lil Wayne said, explaining that he’d stand up for himself and that “pride and respect isn’t a team sport.”
Lil Wayne is currently promoting, Gone Til November: A Journal of Rikers Island, his recently published memoir which details his eight-month jail sentence in 2010 on a gun conviction.
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