BY MELISSA RUGGIERI/AJC Music Scene
Killer Mike took to social media over the weekend to clarify his position on gun ownership and the #MarchForOurLives movement.
The Atlanta rapper , businessman and noted activist posted a pair of impassioned videos on his Instagram page and Twitter pages (watch below), explaining that an interview he recently sat for with NRATV was misrepresented.
Mike (legally known as Michael Render) said he called upon the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and agreed to be interviewed by “people I might not always agree with, to listen to them.”
But, he said, NRATV chose to use his interview about black gun ownership a week later to, inappropriately, Mike said, disparage “a very noble campaign that I actually support” – the student-run #MarchForOurLives events that attracted hundreds of thousands around the country last weekend to urge for changes to gun legislation.
“It should never have been used in contrast to your march…I’m sorry that adults on the life and the right are choosing to use me as a lightning rod,” he said, and then added, “Keep organizing…we’re willing to follow your lead…I do support the march AND I support black people owning guns. It’s possible to do both.”
Killer Mike’s rap partner in Run the Jewels, El-P, waited for his friend to clarify his stance before posting his own response on Twitter.
In it, El-P expressed his support as an “ally and friend” to the students of Parkland and “around the country and world,” and added that his loyalty to Killer Mike, despite their differences of opinion on many topics, remains unbroken.
“I will never turn my back on this man. He wouldn’t turn his on me. Or you,” El-P wrote.
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