Steven A. Smith is coming to the defense of rappers who received backlash for performing at President Donald Trump‘s Inauguration celebrations.
Taking to his podcast The Stephen A. Smith Show, he shares thoughts on the controversial subject, taking issue with the blowback that Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Rick Ross, and Soulja Boy have garnered. Snoop Dogg, Soulja Boy, and Rick Ross performed at Crypto Ball attendees. Nelly performed at the inaugural Liberty Ball. He mentioned that Snoop has close ties to a Trump ally.
“David Sacks is someone who Snoop has had a relationship with for decades!” Smith said. “David Sacks is that cat when nobody else put their hand out offering dollars to Snoop’s football league and beyond–that brother does it!”
“Now that the brothers come along and make something of themselves, and they got opportunities that they’re willing to exploit, and they choose to be apolitical, you wanna get in their ass?”
He also noted that Snoop never noted until he cast his ballot for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Smith went on to allege that the “Hot In Herre” rapper performed because of the payday.
According to Smith, the rappers don’t hold as much “weight” as Biden and Obama who welcomed Trump.
“Honestly, those performances are inconsequential but what are people going to remember two years from now in midterms?” Smith said. “Or four years from now when it’s another presidential election? They’re going to remember when ‘You likened this guy to Hitler and this guy was a threat to democracy. But then we saw you showing all your teeth with him at a funeral.”
The First Take was critical of Soulja Boy’s Instagram Live describing it as “abrasive and excessive.”
“They paid me a bag,” Soulja Boy said. “Obama ain’t never put no money in my f*king pockets, n*gga. Kamala ain’t never put no money in my f**king pockets, n*gga. Trump put money in my pockets, n*gga….Y’all suck my d*ck, ni**a. Y’all want me to not answer the phone for the f**king president? This n*gga [is] the president of the motherf*cking United States. Trump wasn’t even there. It wasn’t even a Trump event. It was the Crypto Ball for crypto.”
Nelly also defended his decision to perform at the Inauguration events claiming “he “respects the office” no matter who’s president.
“I respect the office,” Nelly said on Willie D Live. “This isn’t politics. The politics, for me, it’s over. He won. He’s the president. He’s the commander-in-chief of what I would like to say is the best country in the world. It is an honor for me to perform for the president of the United States, regardless of who is in office. If President Biden would have asked me to perform, I would have performed. If Vice President Kamala Harris would have won and asked me to perform, I would have performed.”
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