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Royce Da 5'9" On Eminem, Kaepernick, and Dinner With Racists
In a wide-ranging conversation about race and power, the Detroit MC calls for nuance and understanding — and an NFL players’ strike
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
There’s an old parable that tells the story of six blind men examining an elephant. As the tale goes, each of them feels a different part of the pachyderm and then comes to his own conclusion as to the properties of the massive animal. A man touching the tusk compares the beast to a spear, while another flaps the elephant’s ear and concludes that it’s more like a fan. Another man patting its torso compares it to a wall. Of course, all six men are simultaneously right and wrong, hindered by the limits of their perspectives.
Adapting that idea for modern times, different people — whether jurors, witnesses, op-ed writers, or Twitter users — can have dramatically different viewpoints of the same situation. Detroit rap vet Royce Da 5'9" (born Ryan Montgomery) fixated on this theme while creating The Allegory, a soon-to-be-released album thick with examination of race in America from a variety of vantage points.
