Grammy-winning rapper T.I. has a mixture of Marvel and Black Lives Matter supporters tuned in right now. The King of the South is making headlines after speaking at a press conference about Atlanta turning into the fictional home of superhero Black Panther, Wakanda.
T.I. x Wakanda
Heading into the weekend, Tip used his voice and presence to urge people to peacefully protest. T.I. took things a step further by calling Atlanta the modern day Wakanda.
At a press conference, the rapper joined Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms and Atlanta Police Department Chief Erika Shields in trying to calm down the southern metropolis. He mentioned Atlanta has been a place of prosperity for Black Americans, unlike other metropolitan areas, then stated, “This city don’t deserve this. However, I understand that a lot of others do. But, we can’t do this here. This is Wakanda. This is sacred, it’s supposed to be protected.” (CBR)
The Internet Reacts
It didn’t take long before social media joined in on the headline-generating remark. People lit up their accounts with memes inspired by Tip’s Wakanda reference.
Wait, There’s More
Heading into the weekend, New York rapper Cardi B hit up her social media pages with some initial thoughts on protests turning violent. She explained how after years of peaceful demonstrations, the message still has not reached law enforcement.
“Seeing people looting and going extremely outraged it makes me feel like, ‘Yes. Finally! Finally, motherf*ckers is gonna hear us now! Yeah! And as much as people are so against it, at this point, I feel like I’m not against it even though it do scare me and I don’t want anybody to get hurt. It’s just really frustrating, you wanna know why? Because police brutality been going on way before I was born but it has been more visual ever since social media started getting popping. And ever since, let’s say since Instagram started, that’s just one app – how many peaceful protests have we seen? How many trending hashtags have we seen? These hashtags freaking keep repeating themselves. I feel like I’ve done videos against police brutality, I feel like this is my seventh time. I’ve been doing f*cking police brutality was f*cked up and the only sh*t that’s changed has been my f*cking teeth. So it’s like, people are tired.” -Cardi B’s Twitter
Before You Go
Instead of ending the discussion there, Cardi took things up another notch. B detailed the importance of using the power of voting to create a massive switch in law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
“Motherf*ckers are educated. Motherf*ckers could take the grown and adult way and act peaceful, people are tired of that. Now this is what people have to resort to. And another thing, I also want to say this, another way for people to take power, I don’t want to make everything political but it is what it is. It’s by voting. And when I say voting, I’m not only talking about the president. We can vote for mayors. We can vote for judges and we can also vote for district attorneys. Yes, we can vote for these people for our community. We sure can. The people who are voting for these people are most likely cops, most likely rednecks. That’s why every single time some f*ck sh*t like this happens, it goes to their favor because these people have the power. The judges, DAs, they have the power to prosecute these cops when they do f*ck sh*t.” -Cardi B’s Twitter