While former President Bush’s seemingly overblown reaction to Kanye West’s 2005 Hurricane Katrina remarks—and West’s subsequent apology—dominated headlines last week, two Hip Hop legends stood behind Kanye, effectively saying he had nothing to apologize for. Jay-Z said he understood how West could empathize with the former Commander in Chief, after West himself was labeled a racist after the Taylor Swift incident, but he stood behind his protégé’s original statements.
“I 100 percent agreed with the comments that he made, because again…it felt like it was being done to black people,” Jay-Z told the Associated Press. “Like all you saw on the news was black people on the news with help signs and all this stuff, and then you have this picture of the commander in chief, who we all rely on, just flying by. It’s like, What is that? If that had happened anywhere else besides New Orleans, would the response (have) been so slow? Would Bush (have) been on the ground? You have to ask these sort of questions. Just the fact that he thinks that the worst thing that happened to him is Kanye saying something about him. Like, what? That alone shows you where his mind is. Are you kidding me?”
Ironically, after a weekend where West’s “Chain Heavy” found him describing himself as “the day Ice Cube met Michael Jackson,” Cube also weighed in on subject.
“I don’t really agree with going back in time and apologizing for a feeling you had that was genuine at the moment,” “These records are time capsules to me…I don’t agree with it, but to each his own. People gotta do what they feel.”
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For his part Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons also backed West in a public letter, which appeared on GlobalGrind.com Monday.