While promoting “Trap or Die 3,” Grammy-nominated rapper and entrepreneur Jeezy opened up about police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement on Monday’s edition of Ora TV and Hulu’s “Larry King Now.”
In the clip, host Larry King asked for the rapper’s take on police-involved shootings of unarmed Black men. “I think it’s been going on,” Jeezy says. “I really think that social media has made it, or given it, more awareness lately because social media’s so fast, you see these things.”
To illustrate his point, Jeezy recalled an incident where he was incarcerated for something he did not do. He said he was in Los Angeles on tour when he was abruptly arrested for an incident, even though he wasn’t present at the time. Though he was eventually acquitted, he spent time in jail and had to go through the entire process to gain his freedom.
King continued to press him about police brutality and near the midpoint of the clip, Jeezy acknowledged his fear that his own son could have a run-in with police and not know how to handle it properly to keep it from escalating.
“I know how to handle myself. He’s more of my concern because he’s a teenager,” Jeezy says. “So, everyday we talk and I just try to keep him close to me. … I don’t want him to run into a situation where he does the wrong thing because that is what the target is – young Black men.”
In addition, he told King that he knows how to play the game and that children nowadays may not know how to respond to police.
Near the end of the short clip, Jeezy talked about the Black Lives Matter movement. The rapper affirmed his support, saying Blacks have joined the movement because “we feel picked on.”
“It’s almost like nobody cares for no Black men or Black lives,” he says. “And it’s just like you’ve gotta put that statement in the air because we have to believe that ourselves.”
Lastly, the Southern rapper shared that his celebrity has not protected him from racism or stereotyping, even saying he was once negatively characterized in his own business establishment. He said he overheard a conversation between two men, with one of them asking the other why he [Jeezy] was wearing a hat. The second man promptly revealed that the rapper was the owner, much to the first man’s amazement. “That guy?!” he exclaimed, as if he couldn’t believe Jezzy could own the establishment.
