Funny Guy Nick Cannon Gets Serious: 'Voting for Office Is Like Picking Which Gun You Want to Get Shot With'
If you don’t follow Nick Cannon on social media, then you likely only know him as the guy who divorced Mariah Carey or hosts NBC’s America’s Got Talent and MTV’s Wild ‘N Out. But as of late, another, much more serious side of his persona has been garnering increased attention.
The artist who launched his career as a comedian on Nickelodeon’s All That is using his gift of poetry to address political issues, including the Black Lives Matter movement. Over the last several months, on every Sunday, Cannon has shared a new, a cappella/spoken-word piece on his YouTube channel. Cannon’s “Black Lives Matter” poem prompted significant backlash on social media, while his song “Too Broke to Vote” drew criticism for its anti-voting message and this lyric: “Nobody for president/That’s my campaign slogan.”
“Voting for office is like picking out which gun you want to get shot with,” Cannon tells Yahoo Music, explaining “Too Broke to Vote,” which slams both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. “I subscribe to the power of voting and who died for my right to vote, but I’m not going to let you take my vote for granted. I’m not voting for either one of y’all until someone speaks about the issue of senseless violence that’s on your watch.”
Cannon isn’t fazed by those who don’t agree with his political messages and have threatened to stop supporting America’s Got Talent. “I’ve been blessed with the ability to not give a f—,” he replies. “I’m in a position now where I’m the check writer; I don’t have many bosses. So I don’t have to answer to anybody. Even when I did, everyone knew I was coming from a place of sincerity. I’ve been doing community activism for years — fighting for criminal justice reform, and against poverty, homelessness, and a lot of things that go on in my community.”
The opposition did encourage Cannon to travel to Dallas in July, following the killings of five police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest. His goal was to talk to police officers and their families. Cannon documents the experience in his spoken-word poem and video, “Dallas Flowers.”
“They were so happy that I even showed up, took the time out. Nobody really does that,” Cannon explains about meeting with the police in Dallas. “I started having real conversations with them about the community. They were telling me about the issues they were having. I was even talking to black officers and hearing them talk about the conversations they are having with their children. They were saying, ‘I’m still a black man. If I get pulled over, I’m dealing with the same issues. I tell my kid, like every black person tells their child, ‘Your job is to make it home safely.’”
Activism is important to Cannon. The video for his “Black Lives Matter” poem includes actual footage of him participating in a march against crime in Chicago, an event covered by the Chicago Tribune. “People don’t understand what Black Lives Matter is about,” he says. “This wasn’t protesting police. When we say, ‘Black lives matter,’ we’re saying it to each other as well.”
After spending last summer in Chicago filming his starring role in Spike Lee’s controversial film Chi-Raq, which addresses the city’s turmoil in a contemporary adaptation of Aristophanes’s ancient Greek play Lysistrata, Cannon began going back every month to help the city fix its problem with gang killings.
Cannon would rather use his influence to bring about change than to spend it debating his naysayers. “I’m talking to the mayor,” he says about his visits to Chicago. “I’m talking to legislators in that community to build the school systems, to keep funding midnight basketball, to get kids jobs. We’re there. It’s not like we did a movie and we rolled out.”
Cannon credits his family and Spike Lee with encouraging him to use his voice to make a difference. He’s been debuting new spoken-word pieces on Sundays because he’s a preacher’s kid. “I come from a long line of ministers,” he says. “I grew up in church as a PK and Sunday’s the day you got your inspiration. You got your word.” Cannon says he does too much “sinning” to be a preacher himself, but the Spoken Sundays releases are his way of giving back. “Even Spike told me art for art is great,” he adds, “but art for a change is when you always have a purpose behind your art. You change lives.”
Serious talk aside, Cannon will continue to create art for fun as well. He just released a Wild ‘N Out mixtape, Wildstyle Vol. 1, plus “If I Was Your Man,” a party record with Jeremih. And there is more to come.
As far as album, look out for a spoken-word record, book, and film called Words in 2017. “It’s about how therapeutic writing is and how writing has been helping me with my sickness, my divorce, my kids to stuff that goes on in the community.”
