Nelly and Other Celebrities React To Mike Brown Shooting

WENN

Among the mixed opinions and speculation, celebrities such as David Banner, Common and Keke Palmer have all taken to their social media to state their feelings on the shooting of Mike Brown and the aftermath occurring in Ferguson. T.I. and Nelly are the latest in the line of celebs to make some comments.

Some criticized Nelly’s delayed response to the tragedy in his hometown, but he recently took to Instagram to express his feelings and also sat down with VIBE for an interview.

In reference to his untimely response, Nelly says:

“When [the shooting] initially happened, I was in Finland. I don’t have enough information. I don’t know what to say so I said, ‘At this time, my blessings and my strength go out to the Brown family’ because at the end of the day, it’s not an injustice, it’s murder. It’s an injustice if [the officer] does not pay for it.”

He also expresses that he doesn’t agree with some of the reactions that have taken place:

“What we need to do is support the Brown family because we don’t know. We [can’t] plan against [the police] that plan and strategize for a living. That’s their job. We got barbers out here. We got fathers. We out here on emotion because these are our babies so you can’t attack from that aspect ’cause you can’t win.”

Nelly says that it isn’t wise to act on our initial feelings:

“We cannot use our last resort first. Now they’re prepared. There is no element of surprise. We the smallest in their world. Black people make up 13 percent of St. Louis. We not making sure we do the right things because we’re so stuck thinking about this shit. We gotta plan ahead. We can’t blame the ones that don’t know better.

There’s three of us in this situation: The ones that don’t know better—can’t blame them ’cause they ain’t seen better—the ones that know better but act like they don’t, and the ones that know better that’s trying to say something but we killing them and they got the best plan.”

Even with all the violence occurring in his hometown, Nelly is trying to stay positive and encouraging everyone else to do the same:

“Keep the peace, keep the focus in mind.”

“The focus is this young man lost his life and he wanted a future, he had a future, so let’s make sure we take the positive out of that, embellish and make sure that young brothers and sisters that came out of this same situation are able to go on and live in his name.”

Rapper T.I. echoed Nelly’s sentiments stating:

“We needed to play chess instead of checkers. We should have waited to see if justice was going to be served first … We shouldn’t have played our strongest hand first.”

I must say the men make a lot of sense. I was very troubled to see people justifying violence and looting because they were angry. Choosing to reflect on the situation and work through your feelings before taking action doesn’t mean you’re defending the police or those who have done wrong in this situation. It simply means that if we hope to make any real change, we can’t keep acting on our feelings destroying our homes, neighborhoods and our culture from the inside out hoping that will make others take notice and change their behavior. I feel like the life of Michael Brown is getting lost in people’s fight for proper media coverage and personal political agendas.

J. Cole and Elle Varner chose not to make any “official” statements, but express their feelings through their art. Check out their singles below: