ASAP Rocky Says He Has Been Protesting for George Floyd
Written by SOURCE on June 2, 2020
ASAP Rocky shared on Twitter Monday that he has been involved in protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, even if you haven’t seen photos of him amongst the crowd. Rocky explained that while he doesn’t post about his every move, he’s making sure that his voice is being heard.
Protests have been ongoing across the country with police arresting thousands of demonstrators. Although he said he was about “no cameras, no Instagram,” a photo of him in front of a spray-painted message reading, “Fuck 12,” was posted on the Instagram account for the creative agency AWGE, which he founded.
Rocky’s tweet flies in the face of previous remarks he has made about the Black Lives Matter movement, and people were quick to remind him of that.
In a July 2016 appearance on The Breakfast Club, Rocky proclaimed that he was “no political activist,” stating that since he couldn’t relate to what was going on the conflict in Ferguson, Missouri at the time, he didn’t want to speak on the matter.
“Why, because I’m Black? So every time something happens because I’m Black I gotta stand up? What the fuck am I, Al Sharpton now? I’m ASAP Rocky. I did not sign up to be no political activist,” Rocky said. “I don’t wanna talk about no fucking Ferguson and shit because I don’t live over there! I live in fucking Soho and Beverly Hills. I can’t relate. I’m in the studio; I’m in these fashion studios; I’m in these bitches’ drawers. I’m not doing anything outside of that. That’s my life
Days later, Rocky tried to clarify his comments, but only dug himself into a deeper hole by calling the Black Lives Matter movement a “bandwagon.”
“I just get upset, and what I was really trying to say there was, like, yo, I just, I hate when the bandwagon stuff start,” he said. “I mean, how come, you know, Black lives only matter when a police take ’em, when a police officer takes it? And it should be like, Black lives, it should matter when a Black life take it. You know what I mean? It should always matter. All lives matter!”
Rocky addressed those remarks about the Black Lives Matter movement again earlier this year following his arrest in Sweden.
“What I will say though is in those old interviews I used to say I think it was inappropriate for me to rap about certain shitt that I didn’t help with. I felt like when it came to Ferguson, J. Cole went down there and he was on the news and he actually helped,” he explained. “So he deserved to rap about that. He deserved to say something about that. So when somebody asked me that in 2015, I’m like I just felt like, personally, if I’m in SoHo or here, I can’t even talk about that…That’s appropriating…It’s not sincere…That’s what everybody [does].”
