Kanye West,
the American rap music icon, has said that George Floyd died because of
fentanyl, an opioid, and not because former police officer Derek Chauvin put
his knee on Floyd’s neck. West, who now goes by the name Ye, made the sensational
claim on N.O.R.E and DJ EFN’s Drink Champs podcast. A video of West making the
comments has gone viral and triggered social media backlash.
Kanye,
discussing Candace Owens’ documentary on Black Lives Matter, The Greatest Lie
Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM, said the film led him to believe
that Floyd died due to the use of fentanyl and the cop’s knee wasn’t “on his
neck like that.”
On May 25,
2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, died after Chauvin knelt on his
neck for a straight nine minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd’s murder sparked a wave
of outrage across the United States triggering the Black Lives Matter (BLM)
movement. BLM’s initiation was to protest racially motivated police action, but
the organisation has since sought to work with many other aspects of racial
violence.
Meanwhile,
Floyd’s final words, which were recorded on video and spread through the world
on social media: “I can’t breathe,” became a rally cry of the Black Lives
Matter movement. The coroner who probed Floyd’s body found that his heart had
stopped while he was being restrained and that his death was a homicide caused
by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and
neck compression.”
But Ye
doesn’t take the coroner’s words seriously. He instead trusts Candace Owens, a
Conservative commentator, talk show host and author, and her documentary on the
BLM movement. Owens, 33, is a pro-Donald Trump Republican and has often
endorsed anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown views during the COVID19 pandemic.
Recently,
Kanye West landed up at the Paris Fashion Week wearing a ‘White Lives Matter’
t-shirt. When a Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson criticised him, West
slammed her for the criticism. When Ye was asked why he was wearing ‘White
Lives Matter’ on his chest, he said, “Because they do.”