When news came just last week that Killer Mike would be giving a lecture on American race relations at one of the nation's leading universities, we were, quite frankly, thrilled. Recent months have seen Mike transform into hip-hop's leading cultural critic on police brutality and racial inequality from coast to coast. Electric yet eloquent, his essays for USA Today and Okayplayer itself read like the lessons we wished we'd sat in on years ago.
Mike's MIT lecture was open to a few select journalists, and Esquire has an extended report on the wise gems he dropped during his time before the chalkboard. Black artistry, police officers and even his own biases were key bullet points in his conversation, one in which Mike admitted "I come to the table full of bigotry. I can't be a racist because I don't have the power, but I do have bigotry. I do come with my own male chauvinism. I do come with my cultural elitism because I went to a good school, too. I come with all that to the table."
Mike attested that African American artists have been "used and abused," and that what's needed are more behind-the-scenes black attorneys and agents, so as to level the monied power imbalance that still cuts across racial lines. "We need more Rocafellas, we need more Bad Boys, we need more LaFace Musics, and if you don't have that, you don't have the cultural vanguard that will protect the artists."
The entire report on Mike's MIT lecture bristles with refreshing takes on modern problems. Read it in full over at Esquire.
