While appearing on Undisputed, rapper Lil Wayne announced he has never personally experienced racism, even though he believes racism isn’t over in today’s society.
During the interview, Lil Wayne was asked to give his views on racism by hosts Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe.
Bayless asked Wayne, “So you’re a deep thinker on these issues, so step back from all of it. I know this is a very broad question, but where are we in the United States of America in race relations, what you see from day to day in your life?”
“Skip, they wouldn’t want to ask me that,” Wayne responded. “They wouldn’t want my answer to represent it because God knows I have been nothing but blessed my whole path. These 33 years have been nothing but a blessing. I have never—never is a strong word—never dealt with racism and I’m glad I didn’t have to. And I don’t know if it’s because of my blessings, I don’t know, but it is my reality.”
“So I have to say I thought it was over, I still believe it’s over. But obviously it isn’t,” he added.
“So you’ve never experienced any offensive behavior from any other color?” Bayless asked.
“No, sir,” Wayne responded.
“Wow,” Bayless said. “Well, you are blessed.”
Sharpe then asked Wayne, “But you see what’s going on, even in your city, New Orleans, with Alton Sterling. During Katrina, the officers that killed those and ended up in jail. So we—I know you say you are not paying attention to it—but you see some of the things that’s going on?”
Lil Wayne responded, “I see what’s going on, yeah. As far as an opinion on what’s going on, I mean, of course, we all wanted somebody to figure out what’s going on first and then put a stop to it, try to put a stop to it. Everybody come together and figure something out and maybe just coming together is the solution. But we have to do that first and obviously we have a bunch of differences. People feeling this way, people feeling that way.”
“When you come to a person like me, my answer is always the same, man. My politics, my flag, my country, my nation, my world, all of that is Reginae, Cameron, Neal and his brother Tuney. That’s it. That’s my nation. That’s my flag. That’s my world. That’s my protest. That’s my don’t protest. That’s my everything. That’s all that matters, those four kids, to me.”
Later in the interview, Lil Wayne claims he believed that white people attending his concerts was “clearly a message that there was no such thing as racism.”