TiP, formerly known as T.I., has had something of an awakening this past year. The releases of his fierce US or Else EP in September and the full-length Us or Else: Letter to the System last month were the culmination of a months-long process, sparked by the police killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling in the summer. In that time, he spoke with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and the activist and singer Harry Belafonte, trying to determine his role and responsibility as an artist.Now the rapper is penning a series of open letters that will address the American people and the sack of blubbering racist chauvinism known as the president-elect. His first letter, published at the New York Times this morning, is written to President Barack Obama.It's a sincere and eloquent piece, thanking the outgoing president for his service and lamenting the population's struggles to match up to his ideals. "For years you fought to keep this nation from the very thing we have now become," he writes.
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A generation that unfortunately fears more than ever being further wounded, overlooked, abused, neglected and having to fight for what we now understand is not such a basic right and that is the plight for equality and basic human dignity.
You can read the full letter, along with a brief Q&A with T.I. over at the Times.Follow Noisey on Twitter..While many of US act like this is something new, those of US who have been fighting, marching and writing about it know that inequality, hatred and bigotry has crippled and silenced US for a very long time. Although we are wounded, don't count US out of the fight.