Nas says "there's a lot of healing that needs to come onto this country."

As part of an interview with Time magazine, Queens, New York rapper Nas addressed the current state of the U.S. amidst the deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and others, and the resulting protests. Nas compared the current climate of the country to that of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

The Queensbridge lyricist also stated that it’s not okay for the country "to look like apartheid South Africa."

"We may have read about the Civil Rights [movement], but you didn’t live it," Nas said. "You may have read about lynchings in Mississippi and Alabama, but you didn’t live through it. It was before this generation’s time, before my time. Now you get to see it. Something that’s always been going on. Something that’s been going on entirely too long. It’s not cool to look like apartheid South Africa [in] 1988. How are we going to be the free world or the most powerful country when inside this country we’re fighting because of skin color? That’s just embarrassing. I’m one of the guys that’s out there saying, ‘Listen, it has to stop.’"

Nas later revealed that he’s made it a point to inform black children that their history dates back far before slavery. He then explained that a number of white people are "very ignorant about American history" while black people have come to "have hatred towards themselves" for a variety of reasons.

"It’s important that every time I see a black child I look him or her in the eyes and I say ‘This is your world. You’re a king or you’re a queen,’" the rapper said. "Everything else is telling them that they were slaves. It’s important that they know history for black children doesn’t start in this great country. It started in the world’s first civilization on that continent they call Africa. A lot of whites are very ignorant about American history. Lots of black people are upset with themselves because they have hatred towards themselves because they’re too dark or they’re this or they’re too that. And there’s a lot of healing that needs to come onto this country. America, we are really smart enough to figure it out, but I guess it’s safer to hang out and be ignorant, and be hateful, and think that one person is better than the other."

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