Freddie Gibbs appears on Joe Rogan’s podcast after N-word controversy: “I don’t think you’re racist”

Rogan has apologised after a compilation video of him using the slur surfaced online

Freddie Gibbs has said that he doesn’t think Joe Rogan is a racist despite the podcaster using the N-word dozens of times in previous episodes.

The rapper appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience on Tuesday (March 1) and made it clear that, while white people shouldn’t use the word and Rogan was wrong to have done so, he doesn’t believe that the broadcaster is in fact racist.

“You can’t say that shit, Joe,” Gibbs told Rogan during the episode. “’Cause you pissed n****s off when you did that compilation. It was funny as fuck, though. I can’t even lie.”

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The compilation Gibbs was referring to was a recently released supercut by India.Aria of all the times the former UFC fighter has used the N-word during his broadcasts.

“I don’t think you’re racist, my n***a,” Gibbs continued. “You my n***a, I fuck with you. I never thought you was a racist. I just thought you was saying some shit you shouldn’t have said and a lot of us n****s say some shit we shouldn’t say sometimes, but it is what it is.”

Rogan said: “Well, that’s the only word that you can’t say, no matter what,” to which Gibbs responded: “Nah, you gotta give that to us. That’s the thing, I wanna tell white people right now, y’all just gotta let us have that. Like, just let us have n***a.’ We got it. It’s one thing, y’all already human trafficked us over here. Let us have that.”

Last month, Rogan apologised for his past use of the word, which when adopted by non-Black people is widely regarded as a racial slur. Spotify, the streaming platform with which Rogan has a lucrative podcast exclusivity deal, reportedly removed up to 70 old episodes that contained occasions where the N-word was said.

Joe Rogan
Joe Rogan. Credit: Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images

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He said that it was “the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve had to talk about publicly,” before going on to say that the compilation shared by India.Aria was made up of clips “taken out of context of twelve years of conversations on my podcast”.

Rogan added: “I know that to most people, there’s no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that. Now, I haven’t said it in years.”

Other figures from the entertainment world criticised Rogan including Samuel L. Jackson, who said “it’s not the context” but the fact that the podcaster “was comfortable doing it” in the first place.

The N-word controversy followed musicians including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills & Nash requesting that Spotify removes their music, after the platform had allowed Rogan to spread dangerous COVID misinformation on his podcast.

Since then, Spotify has confirmed that it will add COVID content advisories to all relevant podcast episodes.

Meanwhile, Gibbs is currently gearing up to release his fifth album as a solo artist, ‘Soul Sold Separately’. The album is yet to receive a concrete release date, though it’s expected to land sometime in June [via The Bill Simmons Podcast].

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