Grammys host Trevor Noah said at the opening of the music awards show Sunday night that it wouldn’t be political. Then it got political.
At one point in the show, rapper Lil Baby turned the stage into a fiery riot scene for a performance of his song “The Bigger Picture.”
The song opened with a black man sitting in a car with his eyes closed as a man dressed in a police uniform approached and rapped on the window.
“When I was growing up, I was taught in American history books that Africa had no history, and neither did I, that I was a savage,” said a voiceover by Lil Baby, whose real name is Dominique Armani Jones, as the man got out of the car and hands the officer his ID. Two officers then took the man to the ground to cuff him, but he stood up and ran away. One officer then shot him in the back.
As Jones started rapping in a set made to look like a city street, another man threw a Molotov cocktail at a building, setting off a large blaze. The scene was reminiscent of the riots that burst out across the U.S. after the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
“I see blue lights I get scared and start running,” Jones sang.
The performance included an appearance by Black Lives Matter activist Tamika D. Mallory, who called on President Joe Biden to bring “justice, equity, policy, and everything else that freedom encompasses.”
“It’s a state of emergency. It’s been a hell of a year. Hell, for over 400 years. My people, it’s time we stand. It’s time we demand the freedom that this land promises. President Biden, we demand justice, equity, policy and everything else that freedom encompasses, and to accomplish this, we don’t need allies. We need accomplices. It’s bigger than black and white. This is not a trend, this is our plight. Until freedom,” Mallory said.
The Sunday night performance mirrored the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in June 2020 in Atlanta, Jones’ home town. Brooks was confronted by police while he was sleeping in his car near a fast-food restaurant and, according to police, resisted arrest before running away, firing a taser he had grabbed at pursuing officers. That night, rioters burned the restaurant to the ground. Atlanta Police Officer Garrett Rolfe has been charged with felony murder.
At the end of his performance, Jones faced off with some white police officers before climbing atop a cop car and singing:
It’s bigger than black and white
It’s a problem with the whole way of life
It can’t change overnight
But we gotta start somewhere
Might as well gon’ ‘head start here
We done had a hell of a year
I’ma make it count while I’m here
God is the only man I fear