T.I. Says He Understands Why Mountain Dew Dropped Lil Wayne

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

Lil Wayne and Rick Ross’ recent terminated endorsement deals have caused many of their fellow rappers to take a close look at themselves and take notice at how their lyrics could cost them millions of dollars. In particular, Lil Wayne getting dumped by Mountain Dew for not issuing out a proper apology to Emmett Till’s family over his choice to use disrespectful lyrics regarding Till’s murder in the remix to Future’s “Karate Chop,” has caused so much outrage in the African-American community that it now forces rappers to question how far they should go in their music. The Till family has made it clear that they hope to spread awareness and force rappers to start taking more responsibility for what they say on wax, however, a lot of Lil Wayne’s peers feel he didn’t do anything wrong. T.I. thinks a little differently. Although he considers Weezy as a close friend and he knows he didn’t mean to offend Emmett Till’s family, he says rappers have to be careful about how they are representing the companies they have signed up to endorse. In a recent interview with Hoodrich Radio, he says:

“Endorsements come from corporations. Corporations, that’s outside dollars. You know what I’m saying? That’s money that you would not normally be making if you were not associated with this brand. So if you’re going to be associated with this brand, you’re going to have to be associated with this brand and have them, you know, be associated with pride in whatever it is you do. So, it’s kind of like you got to be mindful of the things you say if you choose to take in money from outside sources. But me knowing [Lil Wayne], I know [he] ain’t mean no harm in what he said. He was just kicking flav. You got to really be in our life and of our lifestyle to understand how we can kinda unplug and — be on our own sh*t sometimes.”