WARNING: Contains NSFW lyrics
The music video for Joyner Lucas' "I'm Not Racist" is not easy to watch but everyone should. In the Worcester, Massachusetts MC's new visual that has skyrocketed in views on Facebook and YouTube in the past 24 hours, a white man wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat sits across from a young black man as each explain their views on race relations in America. It's intense, raw, and perfectly encapsulates the discourse and dialogue needed in this country right now.
Lucas, who is multiracial, raps as the white man, saying, “Music rot in your brain and slowly start to convince you / Then you let your kids listen and the cycle continues / Blame it all on the menu, blame it on those drinks, blame it on everybody except for your own race / Blame it on white privileges, blame it on white kids, and just blame it on white citizens—same with the vice president / Bunch of class clowns / Ni**as kneelin’ on the field, that’s a flag down / How dare you try to make demands for this money? / You gon’ show us some respect, you gon’ stand for this country, ni**a!"
He responds as the black man, rapping, “With all disrespect, I don’t really like you white motherf*ckers, that sh*t’s where I’m at / Screaming ‘All Lives Matter’ is a protest to my protest, what kind of sh*t is that? / And that’s one war you’ll never win / The power in the word ‘ni**a’ is a different sin / We shouldn’t say it but we do, and that sh*t’s what it is / But that don’t mean that you can say it just ’cause you got ni**a friends / The word was originated for you to keep us under / When we use it, that’s just how we greet each other / And when you use it, we know there’s a double-meaning under."
Watch "I'm Not Racist" above.