Emerson Windy released his Herojuana mixtape in May, but was inspired to release a video for the collection’s “Black America” after witnessing the reaction to the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last month.
“I was just like ‘Damn, Black America needs to hear a song like ‘Black America,’ because any time anyone who smokes a Black man other than a Black man in America, we wanna protest, we wanna riot, but nobody wanna say shit when it’s Black on Black crime,” Emerson Windy says during an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, which is premiering the video. It is below.
“I just feel like it’s a good thing to see people coming together and standing up for some shit, but I just hate how it’s always so short-lived,” the Oceanside, California rapper continues. “It takes somebody getting killed by a fucking police officer to realize that we have a lot of everyday issues in the Black community that need to be worked on. A lot of our values, just the mentality of the hood itself, we need a lot of work. If you go to the song, you hear me talking about that.”
Emerson Windy Learned Activism From His Mother
While Emerson Windy says that his mother instilled activism into him at a young age, he also says that he realizes some of his music does not always present positive messages.
AD LOADING...
“I almost say I’m a hypocrite my damn self because in my music, I don’t always portray the proper things,” says Emerson Windy, who got his break in the music industry as a producer working as Reese Piece Productions. “My story is real, and I can only speak about what I lived and what I been through. But at the same time, I don’t always put across the most positive message. But in that song ‘Black America,’ I am a hypocrite but these are just the way things is, but what inspired it was lack of education in the hood. I feel like education is the key to everything, because if you look at areas, not just the White areas, because there are a lot of Black kids who go to school with White kids. I went to a high school with a lot of White kids. Yes, half of the other kids were bused in from the other side of the tracks from the hood, but we went to school with alotta kids who didn’t know anything about that shit. The Black kids who grew up over there on the White side with their parents who had degrees, the were just as inclined to be involved with the same stuff I was involved in just as much as a White kid.
“I feel like education is seeing positive examples all around them, people who didn’t have to sell drugs to get the rims, people who went to school and got good jobs for that shit,” he continues. “If that’s what you see, that’s what you emulate. But in the hood, what the fuck do we see? We see a failure in the schooling system, teachers who ain’t paid shit, who are always laid off and fired. We don’t get enough books. Then they see people like myself who balled in the streets like street stars. That’s what kids want to be, because that’s the only thing they see. Education is so fucked up, what would you expect them to wanna do, when all they see is broke asses and trap stars? The parallel between the Black and White world, you see kids who want to go to school for a few years, get a bachelors, get a $100,000 job, and make a million in 10 years over a decade saving they money. But in the hood, we’re almost taught to make a million bucks in a year. And then you may go off to prison for four or five years and you hope when you get back home you have some of that bread left. That’s just the different in the communities. You gone hustle, but them kids know how to go to school, get a degree, make a $100,000 a year, and start a family. A lot Black kids don’t even stay to be around that long to care for one, and it’s sad. But it all starts with education.”
The video for “Black America” is as follows, as is the stream of Emerson Windy’s Herojuana mixtape.
AD LOADING...
RELATED: Killer Mike, Big Boi, Nelly React To Mike Brown Shooting
