Killer Mike Taken Away in Handcuffs at Grammy Awards Hours After Rap Class Sweep

Killer Mike was detained on the 66th Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Area in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon, shortly after profitable three of the 4 rap classes within the pre-show telecast about two hours earlier.

Video captured by The Hollywood Reporter’s Chris Gardner confirmed Mike, whose actual identify is Michael Render, being taken away in handcuffs. Gardner reported that an official mentioned the arrest was associated to an unspecified misdemeanor that didn’t must do with any happenings through the Grammys on Sunday. (A rep for Los Angeles Police Division HQ advised Rolling Stone they didn’t have info to offer at press time. A rep for Killer Mike didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.)

The detainment got here shortly after the rapper had gone to the press space fielding questions on his win — elated to have been acknowledged after greater than 20 years into his hip-hop profession. “It feels completely grand,” Render mentioned. “If it seems like some individuals are reaching the end line first, don’t fear. Simply hold operating your race. The one factor stopping you is your creativeness. It’s our duty to be grand in each motion.”

Sunday’s award marked the primary time Render had received a Grammy for his solo work. His first win got here greater than 20 years in the past for Finest Rap Efficiency by a Duo or Group alongside Outkast for “The Entire World.” Previous to 2024, he was final nominated in 2018 for Finest Rap Track for “Chase Me,” the Run the Jewels collaboration with Hazard Mouse and Large Boi.

Mockingly, Mike’s father served as a policeman in Atlanta. In 2014, he advised The Fader that his father wished him and his siblings to be “good residents,” however he didn’t need them to hitch the police power.

Mike additionally referenced his father in 2020, throughout an emotional press convention amid intense protests within the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s police killings.

“I’m the son of an Atlanta Metropolis Police Officer. My cousin is an Atlanta Metropolis Police Officer…I received loads of love and respect for cops,” he mentioned standing alongside then-Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and rapper T.I. Mike, together with T.I. additionally made polarizing pleas for Atlanta residents to cease looting and burning space institutions.

He famous, “I’m responsibility sure to be right here to easily say that it’s your responsibility to not burn your individual home down for anger with an enemy. It’s your responsibility to fortify your individual home so that you could be be a home of refuge in occasions of group.”

Mike has continuously mentioned the failings of the police system in his music, in interviews, and a 2014 op-ed about the Ferguson uprising,” the place he wrote “I’ll by no means take a time off policing the folks we pay and hold a public belief with. I’ll use my digital camera, my pen, my pad and my community to do my half, to guarantee that American will not worry their authorities. or it’s staff.  They work for us — not the opposite method round.

This isn’t the primary time an artist has been arrested on the location of an awards present. In 2006, Yaasin Bey was arrested by the NYPD after a guerilla-style road efficiency. He traveled to Radio Metropolis Music Corridor, the place the MTV Video Music Awards had been happening, and carried out “Katrina Clap,” a remix of UTP’s “Nolia Clap” that spoke on the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. Although Bey’s then-publicist claimed he had a allow to carry out, he was nonetheless arrested after a crowd gathered across the flatbed truck he was acting on.

This can be a growing story…

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