Future doesn’t believe Lil Waynehad any bad intent when he recorded his controversial Emmett Till line on the first . In fact, the way the Astronaut Kid sees things, Weezy helped educate people on the slain civil rights figure in a round-about way.
“I think overall with the whole situation he did bring light in a positive way to what happened, even though they might’ve thought it was negative, he brought positive energy to the situation,” Future said on Tuesday when he phoned into Big Boy’s Neighborhood radio show on Los Angeles Power 106. “He raised awareness to people who didn’t even know Emmett Till, to young kids that never even knew what happened to him.”
In 1955, Till, who was just a teenager, was fatally beaten by a group of white men after he whistled at a white woman. His mother insisted that her son have an open casket funeral so the world can see and remember the brutality of the racially charged murder. Till has been referenced in rap lyrics before, most notably by Kanye West and Remy Ma with no protest, but Wayne’s “Karate Chop” lyric struck a chord with Till family representatives after the song dropped in February. “Beat the p—y up like Emmett Till,” Weezy rhymed, drawing a dark reference to the civil rights figure.
“The record, it was done from a good place, good art, he ain’t have no bad intentions when he was thinking about it like that,” Future told MTV News back in February.
Future’s label, Epic Records, quickly removed the controversial lyric from the song and “Karate Chop” has since been remixed again, with Birdman, Rick Ross and French Montana, but without Wayne. On May 3, Mountain Dew announced that they will no longer continue to work with Wayne, who had starred in a number of their recent ad campaigns. “I never thought it was gonna get so much attention,” Future told radio hosts Big Boy and Rikki Martinez.
Future believes that the lyric ended up educating a bunch of people who didn’t know who Till was, including some people very close to the rapper. “My dad didn’t even know who Emmett was. He thinking I’m talking about Emmitt Smith,” Future said, referencing the Hall of Fame football star.
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