Lil Wayne On Black Lives Matter: “That Just Sounds Weird”
The rapper distanced himself from the movement on ‘Nightline’
Although his next studio album Tha Carter V has been gridlocked in a label dispute, Lil Wayne has been making promotional rounds thanks to Gone ‘Til November, a collection of journals from his time as an inmate on Rikers Island. Tonight, the superstar rapper will appear on ABC’s Nightline, who has been following him around for several years. At one point during tonight’s interview, Nightline correspondent Linsey Davis asked Wayne what he thought about the Black Lives Matter movement, which caused him to ask her what that was. A surprised Davis told him that it’s a movement called Black Lives Matter, “thinking that the rest of American didn’t understand that.”
Wayne, who has hinted at this point of view in the past, told Davis that it “just sounds weird, I don’t know, that you put a name on it. It’s not a name, it’s not ‘whatever, whatever,’ it’s somebody got shot by a policeman for a fucked-up reason.”
Lil Wayne, becoming agitated, then pointed to his wealth and fame as evidence that black lives do matter in America. ““I am a young black rich motherfucker,” he said. “If that don’t let you know that America understand black motherfuckers matter these days, I don’t know what it is.” Pointing to the cameraman, he said, “That man white; he filmin’ me.”
Earlier in their segment, Nightline described Lil’ Wayne as “reclusive,” which might explain why he feels disconnected from anything having directly to do with his own life. “I don’t feel connected to a damn thing that ain’t got nothin’ to do with me,” he told Davis. “If you do, you crazy as shit. Not the camera, you. Feeling connected to something that ain’t got nothin’ to do with you? If it ain’t got nothin’ to do with me, I ain’t connected to it.”
Watch the full exchange below.
