Lil Baby recently opened up about being a victim of police brutality in a newly-published interview with Rolling Stone. The 25-year-old rapper — who released a protest song in June, titled “The Bigger Picture,” touching on the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks — also discussed racism and inequality in his hometown of Atlanta.
“I’ve been a victim of police brutality,” he began. I’ve been in prison where white officers control you. I’ve been in a court system where white judges give you a different time than they would give someone white. There have been times I had a physical altercation with an officer, and he then grabbed me and took me to a room where there’s no camera. We have a physical altercation and left me in a room for about an hour. I’m in there yelling and screaming. I’m so accustomed to it, we don’t even make it no big deal.”
“Where we come from, we’ve got so accustomed to something going wrong. Right? Ain’t nothing we gon’ be able to do about it. I’m from Atlanta, where they had a unit of police that got dismantled for police brutality. The Red Dogs got dismantled for using way too much force. . . . That shit an everyday thing where I’m from,” Lil Baby added.
From there, the hip-hop superstar transitioned to racism in America, insisting Black people can be racist, too.
“Just ’cause you work in a racist system doesn’t mean you racist,” he explained. “Damn near every system that got a job is a racist system. You know what I mean? CEOs be like old white people. You never know, they got to be some kind of racist ’cause at some certain age, your parent, that was the way of life almost. So I almost feel like all these corporations or whatnot may be racist. And black people are racist too.”
“To me, a racist is someone who treats a different race than theirs a different way than they would treat theirs,” Baby continued. “I feel like if you’re a black person and you treat all black people one way and all white people one way, you’re racist. I’m not a racist, so I give a white person a chance to talk and actually we get into it before I can say I don’t like you or not. And I feel the same way about a black person. You ain’t gon’ be my buddy just ’cause you’re black. Just straight up.”
You can read more about Lil Baby’s experiences with law enforcement, and get his thoughts on protesting and racism, by following on over to Rolling Stone.