By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Lil Wayne apologizes to Till Family during a performance? Lil Wayne is no stranger to controversy and he’s made it clear on numerous occasions that he will say whatever he wants in his music, but that doesn’t mean it won’t cause him lots of bad press and endorsement deals. After Weezy controversially rapped about Emmett Till while making references to bedroom acts, the Till family decided to speak out against the disrespectful lyric and demanded an apology. Lil Wayne ignored the family’s request, so they decided to hit him where it hurts and went after his then endorsement deal with Mountain Dew/Pepsi. Although Lil Wayne penned a letter acknowledging he understood their anger, in the end it wasn’t deemed as an actual apology so Mountain Dew decided to cut ties with the rapper.
According to reports, during a performance on July 10, Lil Wayne rapped the controversial verse to Future’s “Karate Chop” remix and when he got to the Emmett Till lyric, he instead decided to apologize to the Till family. Hot New Hip Hop reports:
After coming under fire from fans, critics, and other members of the media, and eventually losing some major sponsorships due to the controversial lyric, Tunechi had shown remorse and regretted offending people by evoking the face of young Till’s brutal death. Now at a recent performance in Nashville, Tennesse, the YMCMB talent changed up his lyrics while performing “Karate Chop” and said, “I apologize to the family of Emmett Till.”
Check out the performance below. The apology takes place around the :35 mark.
Why now? I can’t even take him seriously.
Me either. If he had any respect for his own people, this would have never happened.
I thought for a second maybe he wants to say sorry now because he sees what went down with Trayvon and he might finally get it. But then I remember I’m talking about Lil Wayne here and well most of the things he does are completely self-serving.
THIS.
Child bye. He shouldn’t rapped that BS to begin with.
*blank stare* So…how about those Cowboys?
He’s a little too late. Especially when he apologized to LeBron and the city of Miami like two days after that rant.
He sucks. Took too long to apologize.
It didn’t even sound genuine. Smdh.
Smh. I still don’t care for him.
It could be my emotional and mental state surrounding everything going on right now, but I’d also say that I feel it has to do with Trayvon’s death. No he shouldn’t have said it in the first place. But in my opinion, for many of those that could not fathom what it was like to live back then and experience the seriousness of racism and injustice, this weekend’s verdict gave us all a firsthand taste of how bitter it tastes. Reality hits us all at some point, and I’d rather not speak negatively of him for apologizing if he’s finally realized the error in what he did.