Actor and rapper Nick Cannon chimed in on the Oscars controversy with a two-minute rap video urging his fellow black entertainers to not be “distracted” by “fake gold and plastic.”
“Look what they did to Oscar,” Cannon rhymes before rattling off the names of several high profile instances of black people who were killed by police. “I’m talking Oscar Grant, Sandra Bland, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray. Why we trust what the news say anyway? It’s blasphemous, don’t get distracted by these lottery tickets and statues.”
Criticizing those boycotting and lashing out at the Academy’s lack of diversity, Cannon said, “We crying for votes but how many of us is on the board.”
“Hollywood mainstream don’t validate me, yo,” Cannon said in the video posted to his Facebook. “You in this show for the business, or this business for the show?”
After weeks of negative press and social media protests, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced that it will alter its nominating rules in an effort to encourage diversity after two consecutive years of zero black nominations.
The move, however, has already been blasted by several long-time Academy voting members as a “hastily put-together reaction to a firestorm” and “f—ing knee-jerk liberalism.”
Comedian Chris Rock is hosting The 88th Academy Awards, which will air on Sunday, February 28, on ABC.
A few celebrities have urged Rock to back away from the gig, but Cannon applauds the move.
“That’s why I told Chris, man go ahead and rock that s–t,” Cannon said. “Hell yeah, I’m gonna watch that ceremony where they gonna let a black man be the Master for at least two hours.”
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