On Lil Yachty, a bad rap lyric and accountability in hip-hop

Stephen Jackson’s public criticism of the George Floyd line was personal—but the real issue may lie in how we choose which hip-hop lyrics deserve public outrage.

Lil Yachty. (Screenshot via YouTube)

I’m a man who is a child of ’90s hip-hop, particularly that of the West Coast. My favorite rap group of all time was N.W.A. For years, my favorite rapper was Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre’s The Chronic is now and will always be one of my favorite hip-hop albums of all time (along with N.W.A.’s EFIL4ZAGGIN and Cube’s Death Certificate).

I pretty much can’t and don’t listen to any of those albums now. As far as pieces of music, they’re amazing sonic works whose music inspired my own ideas of what was possible with hip-hop. But some of the (often well-crafted) lyrics are so nihilistic, so indefensible that I can’t really see any beauty in the violent, misogynistic storytelling that came with a lot of the music I grew up listening to. Sure, “Fuck Tha Police” is what most people attribute to N.W.A., and rightfully so, but they had way more songs that were about doing as much damage to the Black community as the police. I feel weird saying that, but it's also true.

With that music as my foundation, when I hear rappers say things that are caught by social media as worthy of note or worth interrogating for their offensiveness or distastefulness, I’m typically baffled unless it's like … really bad. I genuinely have no idea why some potentially offensive lyrics draw the ire of folks while others don’t, especially when there are SO many questionable lyrics to choose from, but more people paying attention means more people to be offended. Which brings us to the case of one Lil Yachty, who recently found himself in the crosshairs of former NBA player and current podcaster and popular media personality, Stephen Jackson, over a lyric—a bad one—that made reference to George Floyd, who famously was a friend of Jackson’s growing up in Texas.

George Floyd’s name is so heavy and substantive at this point in American history that his story doesn’t need retelling, but for the sake of history and because the president seems insistent on changing narratives for future generations, Floyd was a man who was murdered on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, when officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds after Floyd allegedly attempting to pass off a counterfeit $20 at a corner store, setting off a summer of protests against police brutality following the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia by white men who felt like he had no business jogging through their neighborhood. George Floyd’s name is now synonymous with Black Lives Matter and held in reverence as a symbol of a life lost unnecessarily to police brutality. He’s on murals, in songs (put a point in this), in books, documentaries, podcasts, etc. Floyd’s name will live forever.

Lil Yachty is a 27-year-old rapper from outside of Atlanta who has maintained an interesting amount of relevance despite—and I mean this as respectfully as possible—having little to no actual talent as a rapper. He seems to have a charming personality, and I’m guessing people really like him. He’s also pretty creative. Despite my belief that he’s not a very talented wordsmith, he’s willing to try things and has organically grown quite a following, an opportunity that the social media era has given to artists. You don’t have to have radio spins or whatever; at this juncture, you can be a huge artist to a community that champions and supports you, while the mainstream community could have no idea who you are. With that said, Yachty also toes an interesting line. He has features with artists ranging from Drake to J. Cole. I actually really enjoyed his 2023 album, Let’s Start Here, though over time, I’ve realized that it's more about the music and less about Yachty on that music. BUT it’s his album, so I give credit where credit is due for bringing that project to the masses. Yachty is a product of the current era, for better or worse.

I say worse because he’s one of those artists that, despite his limited skillset as a “rapper,” he’s considered an artist of note, and that means when he drops projects, people pay attention. This is how his line about Floyd became a thing. He did a livestream where he debuted the quite-mid record, which featured the line, “Put my knee up on her neck, I went George Floyd.” I don’t know if Jackson was watching or if he just got word of it, but Jackson went off on Yachty for the bar, which led to them getting on the phone and Yachty apologizing, and then Jackson saying he didn’t have a problem with Yachty on another IG post. For Jackson, it was personal, and because he has a huge platform, he made his feelings public, which turned Yachty’s super, non-special line into a conversation piece and actual news articles, and it totally wasn’t worth any of that.

Look, I think it’s great that a person decided to hold a rapper accountable for what he deemed an irresponsible line. I also think that if we did that as a rule, hip-hop would have to go on hiatus. Whether it should or not is not a conversation I’m not interested in, but there definitely are people who are.

Jackson, though, is older than I am, way more street than I am, so I imagine that Jackson is aware of and has rapped way worse lyrics than that one bar would ever be. Is it a dumb bar? Sure. It doesn’t even make sense. Admittedly, I didn’t listen to the rest of the song, so maybe Yachty somehow lands the plane, but I doubt it. I have no faith in that. I’m guessing Yachty thought he got a bar off, and under normal circumstances, nobody but his fans would care, except on this particular day, Jackson took that line personally because it referenced his friend, who also happens to be an icon now, in a negative fashion.

Normally, this would be a nothing burger. To me, this is akin to those promoters who every January come up with distasteful flyers that use the image and likeness of Martin Luther King Jr. to promote MLK Day parties. Sure, they should stop, but also, is it worth a national discussion about holding our icons in high regard? Probably not. This conversation about Yachty, such that it is, is that to me. It’s a dumb bar, but it also isn’t worth further conversation than that, especially when I think that if we want to interrogate hip-hop lyrics, there is MUCH more work to do than an off-brand bar that I’d wager most people never would have heard.

Should rappers be more responsible with their lyrics? Absolutely. But should I expect that from a rapper who I’ve never thought of as a thoughtful, considerate rapper? Naw. If Lil Yachty reads this, though … bro, do better. Try harder. Otherwise, do you. I’m not likely to know if you will do better or try harder, anyway.