Lil Wayne Under Fire for Emmett Till Lyrics
Lil Wayne is under fire after his lyrics to a remixed version of rapper Future's "Karate Chop" featured some sexual references referring to the death of Emmett Till.
"Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels/Beat that (expletive) up like Emmett Till," Wayne rapped on the song.
Till, a black teenager, was killed in 1955 after allegedly whistling at a white woman, which sparked racial tension in the United States. After the "Karate Chop" lyrics were leaked by Lil Wayne, the 30-year-old rapper born Dewayne Carter, Till's family called for an apology.
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Airickca Gordon-Taylor, Till's cousin, spoke out about the rapper's lyrics that were deemed insensitive by many.
"It was a heinous murder. 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," Gordon-Taylor said in a New York Daily News report.
"So to compare a woman's anatomy - the 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," she continued.
However, Taylor was not the only person to speak out about the rapper's lyrics. Stevie Wonder, the famous singer-songwriter who calls himself Wayne's friend, said he did not agree with the rapper's choice to include Till in his lyrics.
"Sometimes people have to put themselves in the place of people who they are talking about. Imagine if that happened to your mother, brother, daughter or your son." said 60-year-old Wonder in a Fox News report. "How would you feel? Have some discernment before we say certain things. That goes for me or any other (song)writer."
Epic Records took responsibility for the release of the rapper's remix and said it would work to have those lyrics taken out, according to the Daily News. Epic Chairman and CEO LA Reid also reached out to Gordon-Taylor and offered an apology for the song's lyrics.
