Killer Mike has emerged as strong political voice in the current landscape.
During a recent discussion with co-founder and executive editor of The Recount John Heilemann for the Hell & High Water with John Heilemann podcast, the Run The Jewels powerhouse and activist spoke on a bevy of topics — from Lil Wayne’s Donald Trump endorsement to Ice Cube’s behind-the-scenes work with the current administration.
Par for the course, Mike was honest and blunt about his opinions on each subject.
“I don’t know why Wayne did the endorsement,” he said of Wayne. “I’m still a Lil Wayne fan. He is one of the greatest rappers on fucking earth, but I suspect, like 50 Cent said, they offer you a million bucks, shoot, they might’ve given to Wayne … They offered 50 a million. Shit, Weezy, they might’ve offered Weezy three or four, you know?
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“And, shit, I wouldn’t support Trump, but if you called me with a five million dollar offer, I at least got to roll over and say, ‘Shea [his wife], they offered us five fucking million.’ She’s going to say, ‘Go to fucking sleep.’ You know what I mean? So I’m sure that his endorsement was they paid, right? That’s not to say right or wrong. That’s simply to say, politicians are bought by lobbyists. Politicians spread money around.”
As far as Cube, who was accused of being a Trump supporter in October after 45’s senior campaign advisor Katrina Pierson outed him for speaking to them about his Contract With Black America (CWBA) and Trump’s Platinum Plan, he said the blame doesn’t fall on the N.W.A legend.
“They also understood that we were being ignored by the party we had been giving so much support to, and they took advantage of that,” he explained. “They didn’t take advantage of Ice Cube. They took advantage of the missteps of the Democratic Party.”
Mike then addressed Kanye West running in the 2020 presidential election and basically chalked up the move to his ego. He added nothing Ye does is a big shock to him.
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“Kanye could not be Kanye if he was not audacious enough to feel he could be president,” he said. “He could not be one of the most free and innovative thinkers on earth. He could not be a builder of one of the largest brands. He could not be a super producer. He could not be as prolific rapper with the audacious … and he got some great writers, too. He could not be that. So I am not surprised by shit Yeezy does.”
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Finally, Mike was asked about his fellow Atlanta native T.I. who convinced Mike to attend a press conference following the police killing of George Floyd. Mike, who admitted he initially didn’t want to do it, delivered an impassioned speech about police brutality and other political issues that quickly went viral.
“So T.I got you to come up, and you’re up there with Keisha Lance Bottoms, and you gave this long speech, about eight minutes long, that went viral and took you into a different place,” Heilemann said. “I can’t tell you the number of white people I know who were like, ‘Who’s this fucking Killer Mike dude, man? He’s fucking incredible.’
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“And that was a moment, right, in America. That was a pitched moment. There was nowhere in the country where more than 100,000 people live where there was not some racial justice moment happening.”
Listen to the full episode below.
