Shyne Po, shoutout. He went to religion, right? Yeah, I was just saying that I’m here to stay. And I was able to juxtapose shine—or my glow—with a person, Shyne or Puff. That’s my man. And the Roc, that’s the organization and put it all together as one.

That was the Miss America model that Donald Trump dissed. So I wanted to shout her out in a positive way just for being an official woman. And it’s just a lot of word play in it.

Well, you know the whole beat feels like some Western. I was just on some Desperado shit with the whole beat. But you know, Frida Kahlo is a legendary painter who had a very strong unibrow, in my opinion. It kind of looked like she was mean mugging. She was very beautiful, but she had a stern look to her. So I was like, you a model, she’s mean mugging. She’s got a serious demeanor to her.

It’s funny because people were misinterpreting that line too. Like “Bang with the Klan,” like I rock with the Klan. That’s what they thought I was saying. I don’t bang with the Klan. We’re ready to bang with the Klan, for sure. Fun fact, which is not really that fun, but sometimes when I’m traveling, I could spend hours in the morning just watching racists get beat up on YouTube. Like, “Klu Klux Klan gets beat up,” when you search that, I could do that for hours. So, I was basically saying right now in my life I don’t really have to do things for money. I am counting clean money, but I still get my hands dirty. That’s what I meant with that line. I like to add in something that has a little bit of larger societal meaning in my verses because that’s always what I’ve been about. Ever since I read Malcolm X when I was 16. The book changed my life. So that’s always going to be a part of what I’m doing. Whether or not it’s the main focus. You’re always going to catch those little bits and pieces of information.

Man, it happens. It was this show we were doing in Chicago, and they had a Bentley, and we’re skate kids, so that image was in my brain.

When I was talking to P that day, I was just telling him about how inspiring it was to me as a kid seeing him making rap music at peak level and skateboarding, because I was a skateboarder as a kid. Before I was ever into hip-hop, I was into skateboarding. So Pharrell really opened up the doors for me to feel like that was cool, because on the Southside of Chicago, there’s not a lot of skateboarders. Before people saw Pharrell skating and people saw Lupe skateboarding, you didn’t have black examples of skateboarders. So, I remember him saying something to me in the studio about having a skateboard and a Bentley. Fast-forward however many years, and now I’m jumping out of the Bentley with the dirty Vans.

I wanted to speak on the fact that it’s not just a racial issue. There is just a disparity between classes, as well.

There are a lot of poor people in Flint, Michigan. But I just want to know that if you were to tip the scale, and it wasn’t 60% black and it was 60% white, would the same things have happened, given that everybody’s broke?

I first learned about Damn Daniel when I was out there in Flint. I was some good weeks late and my manager Cody kept saying it and I didn’t know what he was talking about.

When I got out to Flint, and I’m realizing how little the crisis is really being publicized, and then I’m finding out about Damn Daniel. I looked it up and these kids are on “Ellen” and they just got sent a lifetime supply of Vans.

I’m like, “This whole media structure is fucked over”. I’m like “This is what’s important enough to be on ‘Ellen?’” Ellen ain’t talkin' about Flint, Michigan. What’s Ellen doing for us, right now?

You got the idea of drinking away the pain.

You just bought your fourth fifth of alcohol. But you also bought that .45— a gun. It’s just the imagery to me. I try to create images.

So the image of a little kid playing with a water gun filled with lead water and swallowing it. I thought that was something that could make you see something.