How much street cred is too much?
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Lil Wayne lost an endorsement deal with Mountain Dew after Emmett Till’s family complained about a lyric he wrote.
For executives at Mountain Dew, that may have been the question of the day on Monday, as the brand looked to move beyond a public relations embarrassment that had led it to enda multi-million-dollar endorsement deal with the rapper Lil Wayne. The brand severed its ties because of pressure brought by the family of Emmett Till, the African-American teenager whose 1955 torture and murder in Mississippi for supposedly whistling at a white woman helped foment the civil rights movement.
The family took issue with vulgar lyrics referring to Till that were performed by Lil Wayne on a remix of “Karate Chop,” by the rapper Future. In an interview with the Web siteAllHipHop.com in April, the family said it would put pressure on the brand, which is part of the PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo, to drop the artist; Mountain Dew did so on Friday.
Sarah Cunningham, a publicist for Lil Wayne, attributed the split to what she called “creative differences” between the artist and the brand and described it as “an amicable parting.” A representative for Mountain Dew declined to answer specific questions about the Lil Wayne situation, but said in a statement: “We do not plan any additional work with Lil Wayne moving forward. His offensive reference to a revered civil rights icon does not reflect the values of our brand.”
Pressure on Lil Wayne began building in February when the Till family issued an open letter in which Airickca Gordon-Taylor, a family representative, wrote in a letter to him that “when you spit lyrics” like these, “not only are you destroying the preservation and legacy of Emmett Till’s memory and name, but the impact of his murder in black history along with degradation of women.”
Last week Lil Wayne, whose given name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., issued a letter to the Till family in which he acknowledged how his “contribution to a fellow artist’s song has deeply offended your family.” He continued, “As a father myself, I cannot imagine the pain that your family has had to endure.”
The family was not satisfied with that response and instead called for a meeting with executives at PepsiCo. At the same time, a publicist for the family said, they found an additional way to pressure Mountain Dew: to bring to public attention an offensive Mountain Dew video ad created by the hip-hop producer and rap artist known as Tyler, the Creator, that featured a battered white waitress, bandaged and on crutches, trying to identify her assailant from a lineup that included African-American men and a goat.
That ad prompted a flurry of media attention, and Mountain Dew pulled the ad on Wednesday. Two days later it severed its relationship with Lil Wayne.
Kimberly Wilson, a publicist for the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation, named for Emmett Till’s mother, said that the issue for the family was the lack of a timely response from Lil Wayne and the context in which Till’s name was used in the song. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been in touch with both executives of PepsiCo and the Till family, said he had scheduled a meeting with the two parties, which he will attend, in New York on Wednesday.
In a telephone interview Mr. Sharpton said he had also been in contact with Lil Wayne’s management. He described the issue as a “teaching moment” for both the brand and the artist.
“The fact is that a lot of these young artists do not understand these civil rights issues, do not understand history and what it is that people are offended by,” he said. “The corporations become insensitive because they are profit-driven and have no regard for what’s going on in our communities.”
Ms. Wilson said the foundation had received comments from people saying the family should, in fact, be “grateful to Lil Wayne for even saying his name.”
She added: “The one thing this issue definitely brought to light is that some people didn’t even know who Emmett Till was.”
Both the brand and the artist are to blame, Mr. Sharpton said. “The brand wants street cred, the artist gives them something that’s outrageous — and when the streets turn on them, the artist becomes expendable,” he said.
Steve Stoute, founder of Translation LLC, an ad agency that has worked with artists like Jay-Z and clients like Coca-Cola and Budweiser, said marketers needed to know what they were getting into before they made deals with celebrities.
“What’s really happening is, again and again we are looking at marketers who are just buying famous people,” he said, adding, “I don’t think Lil Wayne did anything that’s not Lil Wayne.”
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