Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike sat down with Seth Meyers on Wednesday night (Jan. 6) for a powerful discussion about the day’s highs of Democratic Senate wins in Georgia and the lows of pro-Trump riots at the United States Capitol.
When running through his range of emotions throughout the day, the rapper recalled, “I woke up knowing that Georgia had done a heck of a job, that everyone from the hip-hop community in Atlanta and throughout the state had worked their butt off.”
“What I really respected about the integrity of my state, beyond people you would think I’d typically agree with, I was very pleased to see the integrity of our governor Kemp and of Brad Raffensperger, our secretary of state, because they called it for Biden, they called it honest, they called it fair and I respected the fact that they did the right thing,” he continued. “The state went blue. Republicans in the state didn’t try to get in the way of it. It happened. So I woke up on a high. I woke up knowing that [Raphael] Warnock had won and pretty sure that [Jon] Ossoff would be called the winner. I woke up understanding that my community in hip-hop really helped put them there in a big part.”
Mike then revealed that his 13-year-old daughter Mikey called him to discuss the series of events at the Capitol. “It led me into a longer conversation with her about how I admired the fact that she participated in the political process by paying attention, I admired the fact that her 18-year-old brother voted for the first time,” he explained. “I really wanted her to understand that the people at the Capitol, although I encourage protest for any American, I don’t encourage what we saw. Essentially, it is violence, it is evil, it is I-didn’t-get-my-way-ism, it is the refusal to accept that this republic is ran by the power of the vote and people have voted an old president out and a new president in. We need to accept that. I thought it was a great time to teach her about civics and to teach her that what we have done in this state is more important than this ugly moment.”
“I hope that all Americans plot, plan, strategize, organize and mobilize for a union post-this,” he added. “We’ve done a Civil War once, it didn’t work out well for the region I grew up in in the South and it didn’t work out well for this nation as a whole. We repaired past that, although we didn’t do the perfect repair we deserve, we are on our way to a perfect union. But it will only happen if we use times like these as a way to cooperate and collaborate for the betterment of this republic instead of displaying the type of behavior we saw today.”
When comparing the Capitol riots to the Black Lives Matter movement over the summer, which was unnecessarily met with violent backlash by the police, Killer Mike noted, “We know that justice is lopsided. We know that. There has been this example and dozens more — I would argue hundreds more.”
“The question for me becomes, at what point to we have to keep using these stark examples versus doing something about it?” he pondered. “At what point do we encourage the demilitarization of police, period? At what point do we live out what the people thought — today, they thought that they were doing what was a free people doing right about the republic. At what point do we want that for everyone? Noam Chomsky said, ‘If you don’t believe in free speech for those you disagree with, you don’t believe in it at all.’ I am, as I grow older, understanding that clearer and clearer. It’s not only my right to like the stuff I like, it’s my right and it’s everyone’s right to have to accept the fact that people have the right to say and people have the right to do, so long as they’re not harming others. In this country, if we’re ever going to be fair, we have to call the BS where it is. Today, what happened was BS versus what happened over the summer, and at some point as a republic, we’re going to have to cooperate and collaborate with those we disagree with for the betterment and a more perfect union in this republic. Until we do that, honestly, until we want for others what we want for ourselves, we will repeat this cycle over and over again.”
Watch the full interview below.
