Rapper Killer Mike has apologized for giving an interview to the National Rifle Association that was released the same day as the March for Our Lives rally. In the interview, he defended the right to gun ownership.
The Run the Jewels rapper posted two new videos in which he said he was also sorry for the timing of the interview. He blamed the NRA for using his words as a weapon.
“That interview was used a week later by NRATV to disparage a very noble campaign that I actually support,” he said.
“I’m sorry that an interview I did about a minority — black people in this country — and gun rights was used as a weapon against you guys,” he said to the students who took part in the rally. “That was unfair to you and it was wrong, and it disparaged some very noble work you’re doing.”
In the initial interview, Killer Mike — who is an outspoken activist — accused those wanting to change gun laws of being “the lackey of the progressive movement.”
“I have worked as a tireless advocate for children and women in my community and I’ve also worked with gun groups like Georgians Against Gun Violence that are not the most pro-Second Amendment [organizations], but I said, ‘If there’s a table to be sat at, the gun owner needs to be there,’” he told NRATV.
He also said that he discouraged his own children from joining the recent nationwide walkouts against guns.
“I told my kids on the school walkout, ‘I love you, [but] if you walk out that school, walk out my house,’” he says. “We are a gun-owning family, we are a family that my sister farms, we are a family where we’ll fish and hunt, but we are not a family that jumps on every single thing that an ally of ours does because some stuff we just don’t agree with.”
That’s not the same message he wanted to share with the students who marched on Saturday. In his apology, he encouraged them to keep pushing forward with their campaign:
“Plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize.”
His Run The Jewels partner, El-P released his own statement in which he supported Killer Mike’s right to his own opinion.