Recent statements that Akon made in support of Tekashi provoked a response from Royce, who sees Tekashi’s marketing strategies as part of a bigger problem.
In his new Instagram video, Royce called artists to stop bringing the streets into the culture. He is concerned that street standards cannot and should not be something that artists have to follow. They should be great at making music. Entertainment and the streets are two different worlds and artists should learn to differentiate them, thinks the Detroit rapper.
However, it is happening at the moment and Tekashi 6ixty9ine is one of the most notorious examples of how two worlds collide. Especially when the lives of young people and the reputation of hip hop legends might be collateral damage, states Royce:
I think in the case of Tekashi, it’s a little late for him. And somebody with a pristine reputation as Akon’s… Bro, if you gonna put your reputation on the line for this kid… It can’t be “Fuck the street code, we don’t care about this snitching shit, it’s just entertainment”. Then he goes and does a little video in front of the Nipsey Hussle mural… Nipsey Hussle wasn’t like, “Fuck the street code and the snitching shit”. He very much stood on that. And one could argue that he might have very well got killed standing for exactly that. That makes it even more unfair for you to denounce it at your convenience. I’m sure that’s not what you were trying to do on purpose but I think we all have to look at everything. I don’t think we look at Tekashi as some huge problem. But you re talking about him like he is so influential, he influences all these kids. All I see is negativity, negativity, negativity all the time. I just don’t feel like we need that for the culture right now. I’m not trying to silence him or anything like that. But he’s just going out and he’s just exacerbating the problem and instigating the problem. Every time he gets a camera in front of him he’s marketing himself as that. It’s misappropriation of the culture and at that point, he’s playing with lives. That’s not a cool message to send. If you wanna stand by that there is nothing I can do about that. There is a lot of shit going on.
Watch the video below:
