Several weeks after his fiery interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, Talib Kweli spoke with Billboard to recall the harsh treatment he experienced while protesting in Ferguson, Mo.
“I had a cop telling me he was going to blow “my f—ing head off,” said Kweli. “I was with poet Jessica Care Moore and activist professor Rosa Clemente. We got chased, and people next to me got tackled. The cops were tackling people like lions tackle gazelles.”
The St. Louis suburb became a hot spot for racial tensions following the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was killed after a police officer shot him while trying to identify a suspect in an attempted robbery.
As demonstrators flooded the streets of Ferguson for over two weeks, officials reportedly sprayed them with tear gas and rubber bullets. A few rappers, including J. Cole, Jeezy and Kweli, visited the site of Brown’s death and witnessed the chaos firsthand.
“They pointed guns at my group and they made us lay on the ground while they secured the area,” Kweli continued. “And there was a black cop who got upset at the way the police were treating us. He said, ‘These people didn’t do anything. You have to let them go.’ If he didn’t step up, I would have been arrested.”