Before the death of Freddie Gray, tensions between Baltimore citizens and law authorities were reaching a fever pitch. That didn’t stop rap crew the Blue Benjamin Bois from using the best means of escaping their hostile situation, music. When clips of Gray’s arrest leading to his fatal injury leaked to the Internet, the promotional roll-out for their Welcome 2 Blue Benjamin World mixtape abruptly came to a hault. Then, subsequent riots and protests eventually brought out the best and the worst of people within the community. Even though various media outlets displayed many of Baltimore’s younger citizens as degenerates, all the Blue Benjamin Bois cared about was just getting their music out there.
This is what lead to that one fateful night during the initial riots where member Blue Benjamin Murdock aired his grievances on the police, and promoted Welcome 2 Blue Benjamin World in the best way possible: On CNN with Miguel Marquez covering the mayhem.
Call it shameless promotion or taking advantage of a serious moment, there was honest desperation in just trying to get his voice heard and people were talking. Murdock was caught in the middle of a fucked up situation and tried to make the best of it.
Speaking over the phone with DX, Blu Benjamin Bois member, Murdock, explains the reason why he took to promoting their project on live television as buildings burned, and how police treat Baltimore citizens when cameras aren’t around.
On Going Viral & Promoting Your Mixtape During A Riot
DX: The video of you promoting Welcome 2 Blue Benjamin World during your time on CNN went viral. How are you feeling about that?
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Blue Benjamin Murdock: It feels good but I’m upset man the way it’s going down in my city right now. It’s a lot of mixed emotions.
[ Blue Benjamin Murda Takes Over The Phone]
Blue Benjamin Murda: Yo it’s that fire, man. It’s really going to show the amount of talent we have here in Baltimore, but this rioting and looting is really messing it up for us. It’s stopping us from doing what we need to do but we’re not going to stop working, though. We [are] just going to figure out how to pass out music because it’s a lot of good music out here man. Baltimore next up, just watch.
[Blue Benjamin Murdock Takes Phone]
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DX: From your perspective, what’s really going on there in terms of police brutality?
Murdock: It’s crazy man. I had a whole lot to say on CNN, but I couldn’t get it off me. It’s crazy out here, man. The way it works out here is that if you run from the police, you’re getting your ass whipped. If you run from the police out here, you’re getting beat. They don’t want to work. If you make them work, you’re going to pay for them working. I don’t know if that happened to Freddie or not, but that’s how it is out here in Baltimore. Police use that badge out of order.
DX: Some people felt it was inappropriate to use your time to promote your mixtape during a very serious situation. Why then?
Murdock: Yeah, I wanted to say something about that. CNN, the critics and everybody discriminating against me, but I said what I had to say. I’m going to promote what’s mine and what I represent. I was saying things that inspired the people but they cut it out. I also did an interview on NBC and I spilled my heart out to them. You know how CNN criticize people, but I was giving out my CDs to people and trying to keep the peace.
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DX: Who are you guys?
Murdock: It’s a group that I started with my brothers. We all family. The project actually just dropped Wednesday but we passed CDs around when everything started happening.
DX: You guys staying safe out there?
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Murdock: Yeah man, we’re staying safe. We can’t really go anywhere now that there’s that curfew. We were in the process of dropping our mixtape this weekend before the Freddie Gray situation. That’s when we put our mixtape promotion with this because we weren’t going to let this stop what we were doing. Ain’t like we were out there joining the rioters. We were just trying to keep the peace and promote this music.
DX: How do you feel about the rioting and looting out there?
Murdock: Man, it’s crazy. Just like I told CNN, I don’t like how they discriminating against us and judging us because they’re not from Baltimore. They’re just outsiders looking in. They just come when it’s bad. This is something we have to live with everyday. We were already heated up, [and] this is what started the fire. Outside of all that happened, we still came together and cleaned up afterwards and came together as black people. CNN didn’t get that, they only showed what they wanted to show.
Listen to Welcome 2 Blue Benjamin World below:
