De La Soul have joined the ‘take a knee’ protests in America, showing solidarity with those involved during their Life Is Beautiful performance.
NFL players knelt on one knee as the US national anthem played before the start of matches yesterday (September 25). The symbolic move began in 2016 when the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took to one knee to protest police brutality.
The wave of silent protests cam after President Trump hit out at players who take part in the gesture. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired!”‘, Trump told a crowd during a rally in Alabama on Friday night.
During their performance on the Downtown Stage, De La Soul briefly joined other musicians including John Legend and Stevie Wonder in joining the protests. Ahead of ‘Stakes Is High’, rapper Posdnuos knelt on the stage and told the audience: “Pardon me while I take a knee.”
The rest of the trio’s set saw them pay tribute to “some of the fallen brothers and sisters of hip-hop”, including Phife Dawg. The group asked the audience to put both hands up in memory of the late rapper and others ahead of airing their track ‘Forever’.
“We’ve been doing this a long time, but we’re De La Soul and we do whatever the fuck we want,” Dave told the crowd later. Posdnuos responded: “We don’t do that TV hip-hop.”