BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Buffalo rapper Benny the Butcher released a song Monday speaking on the May 14 white supremacist mass shooting at the Jefferson Avenue Tops Markets location on the city’s East Side.
The song, titled, ‘Welcome to the States,’ addresses the shooting and hateful ideologies in the United States, as Benny the Butcher raps over the beat to Kendrick Lamar’s ‘We Cry Together.’ He talks about how his travels abroad have given him a new perspective on his home country.
“Mass shooting in my city, eight minutes from where my block at,” Benny raps. “Saw innocent people shot at a supermarket I shop at.”
The video accompanying the song begins with its own message, regarding the number of mass shootings in the United States in 2022.
Through June 1st there have been at least 233 mass shootings incidents in 2022 in the United States. This means that the US has recorded more mass shootings than there have been days in 2022, so far…
One of those mass shootings occurred in Buffalo, New York on May 14th at a Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo’s East Side neighborhood. Ten people were killed that day. All ten were African-American.”
“Welcome to the States” music video
The video shows imagery of malls and supermarkets — including Tops — as Benny raps about worrying about mass shootings while shopping. He also speaks to the shooter’s life being spared following the incident, alleging that if the shooter was Black, he would have been killed on-scene. “I guess great, a life saved, but it’s never this color face,” he raps.
In the song, Benny also called out “fake GoFundMe accounts,” which he spoke on further in an Instagram post Monday afternoon. He said a friend of his, the son of one of the victims of the shooting, has not yet received any of the funds donated. In response, Benny included a link to purchase a “Pray for Buffalo” t-shirt, with all proceeds going to the Buffalo 5-14 Survivors Fund, which was also linked in the full video.
“Purchase a shirt by goin to the link in bio and kno the money goin where it needs to go,” he said in the post.
The track concludes with a clip of President Biden addressing the shooting on May 15, as he declared it was being investigated as a hate crime, denouncing the “racially motivated act of white supremacy and violent extremism.”