Dylann Roof was arrested yesterday (June 18) for allegedly shooting and killing nine people inside of Emanuel AME church in South Carolina.

“We don’t know who we’re around,” Nas says regarding the incident to Vibe. “Every day we’re walking around and we don’t know.”

The Queens, New York rapper says that he hopes mental illness can be identified and cured from an early age to prevent incidences like this from happening again.

Mental illness is not the only problem that America faces, the rapper says.

“How do we heal them today?” he says. “How do we make them more respectful of each other, no matter what race you are? Racism has rotten America. It’s been rotting America since America’s inception. This is a time, a very serious time that we are moving into 2015.”

Many artists responded to the shooting via social media.

For additional Nas coverage, watch the following DX Daily: