Jon:
Back in 2001, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz released their third studio album,
Put Yo Hood Up. Its
album cover famously featured Lil Jon front and center with a Confederate battle flag draped over his shoulders, with two additional Confederate battle flags burning in the background. Following the tragic events of Charleston that left nine black churchgoers murdered at the hands of a white supremacist, the national conversation has shifted to the Confederate flag, with South Carolina on Wednesday voting to finally remove it from its statehouse grounds. But for years,
rappers have been reappropriatingthis symbol of hate and division as a means to subvert its power."Kanye [West] said exactly what I said in an interview way back in the day, which is: What infuriates someone more than taking something sacred like that and putting it on your black skin?" says Lil Jon of sporting (and torching) the Confederate flag. "If you're a racist and a black dude puts a Confederate flag on, you're going to be like, 'FUCK!' So you're taking that power away from them by using it. We burned the flag on the album cover and in the music video."