Billboard magazine reports the 8th most popular song this week is from the 19-year-old Florida rapper calling himself Kodak Black. The hit single, his first, is called "Tunnel Vision." The video includes the rapper standing in front of burning crosses and a scene of a Trump supporter wearing a Confederate-flag vest and a red hat that reads "MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN." He aims to shoot an unarmed black man (for sport?), but the gun jams. Subtlety is not a virtue to this "artist."
Black is currently in jail for violating the terms of his house arrest. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reported Black [real name: Dieuson Octave] failed to complete a mandated anger management program and went on unauthorized trips to a Miami strip club on February 1 and a boxing match in Ohio on February 18. He's also on bail for a sexual-assault charge from last February in South Carolina.
The website Complex added Black is losing an estimated $50,000 for each concert booking he's missing while he's in jail. By that math, he's lost $300,000 so far.
A few weeks back, BET.com gushed over the Trumpkin-bashing video: "Kodak Black Just Made a Major Political Statement." It has over 27 million views.
The video tackles a major bout in racial tension as it begins with a preview of a Black man tussling with a white man donning white supremacist gear such as a Confederate flag and Donald Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” caps. [Actually, the cap reads "HATE AGAIN."]
As the actual song ensues, we are taken back to how it all began while being introduced to Kodak, who is debuting his new haircut in the video, and two of his affiliates. In Kodak’s compelling visual, he and the two men stand in a field as a wooden cross burns, a staple of white supremacy and the American-founded Ku Klux Klan hate group, as well as one of the group’s white-hooded members lynched from one of the other crosses. While Kodak raps about his awareness of others not wanting to see him succeed and, instead, who wish to see him behind bars, the violent story of the white and Black man unfolds.
Approaching the Black man, who appears to be doing some yard work, the white Trump supporter wields his gun from a pick-up truck and, without any exchanged words, aims it directly at the Black citizen as the two make eye contact. Once something goes wrong with the gun and it fails to discharge, the Black man charges at him and the two engage in vigorous fist-to-fist combat [and strangling] on the ground. Nearly ending the scuffle, the Black man gets the upper hand and prepares to strangle the aggressor symbolically with an American flag.
The violence ends when a little girl yells "Stop!"
The song's lyrics are typical rap, with the Powers That Be wanting to see this black man in the penitentiary. Verse 2 is a doozy:
I told you niggas, I'm gon' be that fuckin' nigga
Everything be good 'til you doin' better than 'em
They wanna see a nigga shot or see me in the system
All you niggas out here poison like snake venom
Codeine in my liver, rockin' Balenciaga denim
I'm booted even when I'm sober, I don't need a jigga
They sendin' all my niggas on a fuckin' journey
I told that baby to come over 'cause I'm fucking horny
My mama told me, "Kill these niggas, son, keep it goin'"
I'm thug to the bone, but I'm still her baby boy
Lil Kodak, boy they hate to see you in a foreign
They miss when you was in that 'Yota kickin' door
