Progressive activist and rapper Killer Mike won three Grammys including rap album of the year last week but was taken away backstage during the ceremony in handcuffs, arrested and booked for a misdemeanor.
On Monday’s episode of “The View,” host Sunny Hostin told the rapper that there were other headlines outside of his wins that night. “I was very upset about it because it was unnecessary and you don’t do that on that on that special night,” Hostin said.
Hostin asked the rapper, whose real name is Michael Renner, even though it is an ongoing legal matter, what he could share about what happened that evening.
Killer Mike described the evening and the incident that led to his arrest and being held at the Los Angeles Police Department for hours. “Backstage was overcrowded. The winners were exuberant, and I think security got a little overzealous,” he said.
He continued, “It’s water under the bridge for me. I’d like to say all of my heroes have been in handcuffs – Malcolm [X], Martin [Luther King Jr.], [Nelson] Mandela, Medgar [Evers]. I walked out with the same dignity and respect that I walked in with, and I would implore people to just take that from it.”
In our Salon Talks interview with MSNBC journalist, Joy Reid, who wrote “Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America” said that figures like Evers were crucial to the civil rights movement because he “was the person who was training those young people how to do civil rights work.”
