A cousin of the late Emmett Till wonders if Lil
Wayne understands just how damaging it was when he rapped a vulgar
reference to the black U.S. teen whose death in 1955 became a
significant moment in the civil rights movement.
Airickca Gordon-Taylor says Till's family would like an apology
from Lil Wayne for the brief but disturbing lyric on Future's "Karate
Chop" remix. But more than that, she'd like the platinum-selling New
Orleans rapper to understand how his comparison of a sex act to the
14-year-old Chicago native's torture death in Mississippi is hurtful to
the black community.
"It was a heinous
murder," Gordon-Taylor said in a phone interview Thursday from Chicago. "He was brutally beaten and tortured, and he was shot, wrapped in barbed
wire and tossed in the Tallahatchie River. The images that we're
fortunate to have (of his open casket) that 'Jet' published, they
demonstrate the ugliness of racism. So to compare a woman's anatomy - he gateway of life - to the ugly face of death, it just destroyed me.
And then I had to call the elders in my family and explain to them
before they heard it from some another source."
The song was leaked on the internet over the weekend.
Epic Records said Wednesday it regretted the unauthorized version of the
song being leaked online and that it was employing "great efforts" to
pull it down. The brief reference - just seven words - will be stricken
from the song when it's officially released later.
The rapper made a crude reference to rough sex and used an
obscenity. He indicated he wanted to do as much damage to a woman's
vagina as had been done to Emmett Till.
I can't believe I'm about to defend Lil Wayne, but I am. This is ridiculous
nonsense: Lil Wayne's audience doesn't even know who Emmett Till is.
This happened almost 60 years ago. A lot of bad things have happened
since then. Relax. Stop taking life so seriously. The fact that Lil
Wayne, a black boy from the south, now gets paid millions of dollars to
rap about "beating up that p***** like it was Emmett Till"
is proof that the civil rights movement is over. We're all equal now -
so let's move on to fixing some new problems like the economy, poverty,
drug abuse, war, etc.
-W&J's Producer
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