In an interview with journalist Touré Neblett, the Lox rapper Styles P clarified his stance on Donald Trump and compared his overt racism to some of the more hidden racism of the Joe Biden administration.
At the 59:20 point of the podcast episode, Touré asked Styles P if it was true he supported Trump in the 2020 election. "That definitely wasn't true," he responded. "That's funny. I support independent thinkers. I'm the guy who says, pardon my French, but fuck the red side fuck the blue side. They're both different wings on one bird." While his stance on both the Democrats and the Republicans seems to be clear, he said that he preferred Trump's time in office over Biden's.
“If you ask me something, I did prefer when Trump was in office over Biden and I can tell you clearly why. Black people paid more attention to what was going on," he shared, to which Touré suggested that the Black community felt like they were "in crisis" at the time Trump got into office.
"Yeah, we were in crisis now though... I’d rather have you tell me you don’t like me and know you don’t like me and you inform me than me have to guess it or you secretly don’t like me but you telling me you don’t like me. I think the government's been doing that for ages," he continued while clarifying that he doesn't support Trump in any way. "I’d rather deal with clear racism—just someone being who they are and letting you know where they come from." Touré asked if he thought the country was better under Trump, and he replied, "Nah I think the country sucked under both of 'em."
Ultimately, he said he doesn't want to "pick a better poison" when it comes to politics. "I think politically we've got to the point where people are just figuring out on picking the better poison," he shared. "Whether you look at Trump, whether you look at Biden... I would ask you what have either one of them done for us?" He added that he did not vote in the 2020 election. "Couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton either," he said, although he said he voted for Barack Obama twice. "I felt Hillary had as much racist incidents as Trump did."
During the years of the Trump administration, Styles P said that everyone was "paying attention" and they were aware of what he was capable of. "You knew what you were under," he said. "There's times in the history of the country where we could see things needed to be changed. ... I'm not fond of what the Democrats do. I'm not fond of what the Republicans do. I feel I don't have the answers to it, but I feel there should be a better system at play." He later said that he's more interested in local politics than he is in politics at a federal level.
In the interview, Styles P was also asked about the time he and his Lox bandmates confronted Diddy at the Bad Boy Records office over their frustration regarding their record deal. "The vibes wasn't just there, and pardon me those were my ignorant days," he laughed at the 30:50 point, to which he was asked what he did to Diddy during the encounter. "I threw a chair at him. I didn't even hit him, I tried to hit him. Damn near broke my ankle—almost sprained my ankle doing that shit. I was really mad."
While he admitted that Diddy was able to dodge the chair, he did "[break] a few things in there, probably." He was "frustrated" about the situation, but he's grown to realize that wasn't the right way to handle it. "On the street, [if] you feel violated you handle it," he said. "In business, it doesn't work like that. ... When you putting street math in your head, industry math doesn't quite add up."
Styles P added that Biggie's passing in 1997, whom the Lox were very close to, also contributed to the frustration at the time. Eventually, though, they were able to get what they wanted. "I was the bad guy, and there were few other good guys there," he laughed. "What did I learn from that period in life, I believe it helped me out with understanding how business works... Not just the music business but business in general."
Listen to the full episode of the podcast on Apple Podcasts here and Spotify here.
