About a month ago, Lil Wayne was in some hot water after a photo from one of his video shoots leaked. In the photo it appears that Lil Wayne is stepping on the American flag and naturally, people had a lot of things to say. Wayne took to his Facebook page to address the criticisms.
“It was never my intention to desecrate the flag of the United States of America. I was shooting a video for a song off my album entitled “God Bless Amerika”. The clip that surfaced on the Internet was a camera trick clip that revealed that behind the American Flag was the Hoods of America. In the final edit of the video you will see the flag fall to reveal what is behind it but will never see it on the ground.”
It was good that he addressed that, although… well, I’ll leave that alone.
Anyway, the video for the actual song “God Bless Amerika” dropped last week Friday and the timing couldn’t be more appropriate. In the opening scenes of the video a solemn Wayne stands in front of the American flag and sings about this great nation of ours.
The hook goes as follows:
God bless Amerika
This ole godless Amerika
I heard tomorrow ain’t promised today
The end of time is like a hour away
Then the second verse goes like this.
Damn, military minded, lost and can’t find it
The stars on the flag are never shining
Uh, I saw a butterfly inhale today
Will I die or go to jail today?
How appropriate right? The way things are looking right now in America, as a black man you never know how life is going to play out. And even though I’m sure this song was written months or maybe a year ago, it’s fitting. What I find so interesting is that the video highlights the people of Lil Wayne’s old neighborhood in Hollygrove, Louisiana. Men, boys, women and children from his community. He speaking to the people in his neighborhood but it applies to so many men and so many communities around the country.
A lot of people have been rightly critical of a lot of Lil Wayne’s most recent work but this song really shows us the breadth of his talent, intellect and introspection.
Check out the video on the next page.
