Emmett Till’s Family Calls Lil Wayne “Dishonorable”

The family of Emmett Till has a bone to pick with rapper Lil Wayne for using the name of their long lost relative in vain.

Lil Wayne is guest featured on a Future song remix called “Karate Chop” (listen to the song here), where, in one of verses, he boasts that he “beat that p—y up like Emmett Till.”

Besides being a questionable line lyrically, the rhyme is also highly offensive to the family of Emmett Till.  If you know your black history (and not just because it’s February), you’ll recall that Emmett Till was a young black teenager who was brutalized and murdered in Mississippi in 1955 – for allegedly flirting with a white woman.

In a video, Till’s cousin, Airickca Gordon-Taylor, had this to say:

“To compare his murder and how beaten and how bullied, beatened, and tortured he was to the anatomy of a woman was really very disrespectful.  We found it dishonorable to his name and what his death has meant to us as a people and as a culture. It was offensive not only to us, but to our ancestors and to women and to themselves as young, black men. I just couldn’t understand how you could compare the gateway of life to the brutality and punishment of death. And I feel as though they have no pride and no dignity as black men.”

Taylor then went on to state that the Till family was also concerned on the effect Wayne’s comment would have on today’s generation:

hat not only is the Till family concerned with Till’s image, they’re also concerned with the young people who happen to be immersed in Lil Wayne’s music.

“Our family was very offended, very hurt…[but] we’re concerned about our young people as well as the image of Emmett Till.”

In Weezy’s defense, he’s not the only person to use Till’s name disparagingly in a rap…although he might be the most offensive.  In his 2003 hit “Through The Wire,” Kanye West referred to his then-girlfriend’s reaction to his car accident by saying she was “on a plane, scared as hell that her guy look like Emmett Till.”

Yikes.

Lil Wayne has not commented on the outrage of the Till family, but watch the video below and let us know your thoughts.  Do rappers need to take more responsibility for their lyrics?

[Source: HipHopDX]