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
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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.
