T.I. spoke to CNN Tuesday (April 22) about police brutality and his recently remixed “La Policia” record with Kap G.
“I think there’s been a blatant disregard, in certain areas of society, when it comes to interactions with law enforcement,” T.I. said. “I think there’s a resentment, an undeniable fear, that law enforcement has for young minorities, and it is reflected in their actions.
“And of course that leads to angry lyrics because our music, historically, has been a reflection of our circumstances,” Tip continued. “So if you don’t like our lyrics, you must then change the circumstances that inspire them.”
Kap G said he had been racially profiled before.
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“It was two years ago, I got pulled over, and basically, the whole situation was just unfair,” the Mexican-American rapper said. “They wanted to check my car, you know, asking for my ID. They thought I was illegal. And yeah, it’s just unfair.”
CNN’s Don Lemon spoke to New York police commissioner, William Bratton, earlier that day. Lemon played a piece of that interview for T.I. and Kap G: “When you have demonstrators marching down the street chanting, ‘What do we want? Dead cops,’ I’m sorry, that’s gone too far,” Bratton said in the clip.
“I agree completely with the commissioner,” T.I. said. “We’re not calling for the death of anyone. We’re calling for the death of our people to end. And I believe just as there are government funded-task forces for other crime syndicate units — whether it was the mafia, whether it’s terrorists, whether it’s the Hip Hop cops — I believe that these police officers, who hide behind their badges and abuse their authority, they deserve just as much attention from the federal government and the other people who can put some regulation to their actions.”
T.I., who has had several run-ins with the police over the years, maintained that there are some good police officers.
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“I believe for the most part, when a person decides that he wants to become a police officer, I believe that those are the greatest, most purest intentions in the world — to want to serve, protect, and to defend the defenseless,” Tip said.
He went on to say that police need “more stringent, more meticulous training” in order to handle certain areas of society in a safer way, and that their lack of experience within particular segments of society is the problem.
