One-time community organizer and full-time Jewel Runner Killer Mike has never been afraid to take politicians to task. Now he’s putting himself in the hot seat, taking to Instagram to ask people to write in his name in tomorrow’s special election in Georgia’s 55th congressional district. See his post below.
Since rising to prominence with El-P as Run the Jewels, Mike—whose birth name is Michael Render—has spoken about race at NYU and MIT, delivered passionate on-stage speeches about police brutality, and called Bill O’Reilly “more full of shit than an outhouse” on Real Time with Bill Maher.
But Render’s political posture is nothing new. On “That’s Life,” from 2006’s I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind, he took then-president George Bush to task—along with George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Oprah, and pretty much everyone else even remotely involved with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—for what he saw as their refusal to understand the experience of African-Americans in New Orleans and elsewhere.
(via Stereogum)
Originally published June 15, 4:06 p.m.
Updated June 15, 7:34 p.m.: As Spin points out, Killer Mike’s political aspirations will have to wait. In a new Instagram post, he explains that in order to be eligible for the 55th congressional district’s race, he would have had to register beforehand as a write-in option. But it sounds like the setback hasn’t derailed his desire to participate in politics entirely. “When I do run,” he says, “When I win, we win [sic].”
