George Zimmerman was a fan of hip hop to such an extent that he expressed surprise and disappointment that P Diddy came out in support of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old that Zimmerman killed.
This revelation came from the transcripts of the 150 telephone conversations Zimmerman had while he was locked up in Seminole County jail on second degree murder charges for killing Martin. Zimmerman’s lawyers fought unsuccessfully to have the tapes suppresed, but Judge Kenneth Lester ruled against them. GlobalGrind combed through the tapes and came up with a bizarre conversation between Zimmerman and his sister about hip hop mogul and rapper P Diddy, aka Sean Combs.
Sister: Guess what I listened to?
GZ: What?
S: The song you were telling me about?
GZ: P Diddy?
S: Do you know that him and others are talking shit?
GZ: P Diddy?
S: Yeah
GZ: Oh…I didn’t know.
S: You know what’s so funny? It’s people that we’ve been admiring for such a long time.
GZ: Yup
S: It’s like wow.
GZ: Yup
S: I can’t believe it. It’s crazy
GZ: I can’t believe it either.
S: Yeah, it’s like a stab in the back.
GZ: Yup
On one hand, the conversation reveals just how weirdly delusional Zimmerman is about the impact of what he did. Because he likes and admires Diddy, somehow that translated into disappointment that Diddy would show support for the 17-year-old black boy who was killed by his bullet, rather than the white/Hispanic man who pulled the trigger. And it shows how strange is the world that we live in, that Zimmerman could come from a family that his own cousin—the one who said he molested her over the course of a decade—described as deeply racist, yet he could grow up with such an attachment to rap and hip hop.
GlobalGrind also found another bizarre rap reference in the Zimmerman tapes, this one about Eminem and Dr. Dre.
In call #107, Zimmerman’s sister tells him that he needs to watch the Eminem video “I Need a Doctor” because the video reminds her of their situation.
She says, “The words now mean so much more.”
“I’m so like Dr. Dre in the video,” Zimmerman replies.
