Lil Wayne has been caught up in plenty of legitimate drama lately. There was his near-fatal seizure, which he discussed earlier this week on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. There was his misconceived Emmett Till simile, which angered the civil rights icon’s family and wound up making Weezy the latest rapper to run afoul of his corporate sponsors. Now, less than a week after Flag Day, a video has shown up that has made the rapper a target for scoundrels taking their last refuge.
The clip shows Wayne stepping on an American flag during a video shoot for I Am Not a Human Being II track “God Bless Amerika,” which extends the healthy suspicion of of the U.S. justice system that saw Lil Tunechi acting like he had amnesia during a 2012 deposition. The rapper tweeted today, “I didn’t step on the flag on purpose! It’s a scene in a video where the flag drops behind me and after it drop it’s just there as I perform.”
Like Maroon 5 cheekbone-haver Adam Levine’s recent allegedly un-American gaffe, Wayne’s behavior says more about his critics than it does about anything else. Coverage of the story so far has tended to refer to the video as “controversial” without ever actually quoting anyone who claims to be offended by it. A quick perusal of the clip’s YouTube comments explains a lot: Scroll down, and you’ll find no shortage of unapologetic references to Lil Wayne using the “N word” — and not in the familiar, hip-hop way. Feeding the trolls is one thing, but feeding the idiots who go on YouTube to advocate lynching is ugly and irresponsible.
