Jay Z: ‘I didn’t sleep for two days after the Trayvon Martin verdict’

'He had no intentions of robbing anyone's home' said the rapper of the late teenager

Jay-Z has said that he didn’t sleep for two days after the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman verdict came out, as he was so angry.

Speaking in the second part of an interview conducted with his own Life and Times website, the rapper explained that he was in London when he found out that George Zimmerman was found not guilty for the second degree murder of African American teenager Trayvon Martin. Scroll down to watch the interview.

Jay Z commented: “I was really angry, I didn’t sleep for two days… It was really about the thing that we all knew, there was still a bit of racism in America, but for it to be so blatant… Didn’t Trayvon have a right to stand his ground? He was being chased, he was being chased and he fought back. He may have won, that doesn’t mean he’s a criminal…”.

This guy went to get some Skittles and go back to watch the All-Star game. He had plans… He had no intentions of robbing anyone’s home. It’s a reminder of we’ve still got a long way to go. It’s beautiful because this generation right now… they don’t see colour in that way, they’re removed from those racist feelings.

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The rapper went on to pick apart the Stand Your Ground law, which was vital in the case. “That Stand Your Ground law, you can have a fight with someone and if they’re running away and you can shoot them and kill them and you’re fine? What? Come on, come on, man,” said Jay Z. “When someone’s robbing your house and they’re leaving you can shoot them on the way out? They don’t possess a threat to you at that point.”

When asked about dedicating his song ‘Forever Young’ to Martin at shows on his current tour with Justin Timberlake, Jay Z said: “Yeah, because his memory will live on.”

Jay Z and his wife Beyonce both attended a demonstration in New York over the weekend, protesting over the acquittal of Zimmerman. The pair were seen outside the NYPD headquarters with civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton and Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton.

Beyoncé used her website to compare the case to the 1955 murder of black teenager Emmett Till, writing: “We must fight for Trayvon the same way the generation before us fought for Emmett Till.”

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