Mountain Dew Drops Lil Wayne Over Emmett Till Reference

Sometimes I wonder if these corporations actually listen to the music of the rappers that they give huge endorsement checks to. It looks like yet another has lost an endorsement due to one of their lyrics. This time it was Lil Wayne’s use of Emmett Till’s name in the “Karate Chop” remix by Future. In the line Lil Wayne says “I beat that p*ssy up like Emmett Till”. After getting backlash from relatives of Till, Lil Wayne changed the lyric, even issued an apology, but that didn’t stop them from petitioning him to lose his PepsiCo endorsement. And that he did. 

In a statement PepsiCo says: 

“We do not plan any additional work with Lil Wayne moving forward. His offensive reference to a revered civil rights icon does not reflect the values of our brand.”

Here’s my take on the situation. In my eyes, everybody wants a piece of the Urban community until some real hood urban stuff starts happening. If you listen to the first 30 seconds of any Lil Wayne verse he beats that p*ssy up like a million things. In fact, I’m almost positive he has used the names of a million people in the past. I feel that these corporations don’t have any individuals on staff who are actually in tune with the urban community. Had they, someone would have told them real quickly that signing Lil Wayne and Rick Ross may have been a liability. You can’t expect a rapper to change the way they rap AFTER the endorsement money when you’ve given them the money simply because of their reach. Honestly, if Wayne had said anyone else but Emmett Till, or the Till family not made a big fuss, would he have been dropped? Likely not. Not condoning what he said, but it’s definitely ridiculous at this point.