After taking some major heat that included the ire of some other rappers and at least one L.A. radio station that vowed to boycott his music, Broward County rapper Kodak Black issued an apology of sorts on Sunday over comments he made about slain rapper Nipsey Hussle’s girlfriend Lauren London.
Warning: The videos attached to this story contain language that some might find offense.
Black, currently on tour, was seen in an Instagram video on Saturday night talking about how London is about to be single and how she’s about to be a “whole widow out here.”
The video sparked a fierce backlash in the same hip-hop culture that for the past week has been mourning Hussle, who was shot and killed in L.A. on March 31 and whose senseless death has set off an outpouring of grief, with everyone from street gangs to top police officials lauding Hussle for having worked hard to make a positive difference in his South L.A. neighborhood.
Big-name rappers like T.I. and The Game, among others, angrily called out Black, who grew up in Pompano Beach’s Golden Acres community. Entertainment news site TMZ ran a headline Sunday that said Black showed “extreme disrespect.”
L.A. radio station Power 106 then announced it would stop playing Black’s music.
This is what Kodak said, according to a report by USA Today:
“Lauren London, that baby, though. She about to be out here single. I’ll be the best man I can be for her. I’ll give her a whole year. She might need a whole year to be crying and [expletive] for [Hussle].
“I ain’t trying to shoot [my shot] at her … I’m saying, listen. She can do two, three years. I’ll try to be like the friend if you need to holler or a shoulder to lean on. She can call my line.”
The comments were widely perceived as Kodak trying to stake a claim to London.
The controversy also comes at a time when Kodak, who changed his legal name from Dieuson Octave to Bill K. Kapri in 2018, awaits trial in South Carolina on allegations he raped a woman in a Florence, S.C., hotel room.
On Sunday, Black posted a video in which he began to apologize to Lauren London before quickly saying he feels he didn’t say anything to disrespect her. He then calls out all the other rappers and critics who were quick to pounce on him.
Black’s Fort Lauderdale-based attorney, Bradford Cohen, who has represented Black in his prior criminal cases in Broward County, came to Kodak’s defense on Instagram and urged Kodak’s critics to remember that he’s 21 years old.
“First let me say we have all been 21, some of you are still 21 or younger and we do or say things that maybe aren’t put the right way or are insensitive. I can tell you what I do know, Kodak is one of the most real, caring, giving [people] I know. He’s fiercely loyal and although people don’t see it, a humble, appreciative guy. He does wonderful things that he rarely takes credit for or tells the press about.”