Shortly after winning album of the year at the BET Awards 2024, Killer Mike broke his silence on his arrest at the Grammy Awards with his new single “Humble Me,” which serves as the first taste of an upcoming project described as an epilogue to his last album “Michael.”
“Humble Me” arrives on the same night that Mike attended the BET Awards at Peacock Theatre, near where he was arrested at the top of the year. At the Grammys, which took place in February, Mike won in three major rap categories and, soon after, was led away in handcuffs following an acceptance speech. “I won at the Grammys for spitting my grammar / Did that for Atlanta, bruh / Swept up like a janitor, got sent to the slammer bruh,” he raps on “Humble Me.” “The devil be doing you right when you doing it / The devil will ruin you, behind me Satan, I walked out the door, my head up and handcuffs in pride.”
Mike was booked on a charge of misdemeanor battery, and a few days after the arrest, he explained that he had gotten into an altercation with a security guard. He reflects on his time in jail on “Humble Me”: “I had to quiet my mind, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed / The liars were lying their lies / I kept on just keeping my faith / The devil put me on this whipping post / The lord did not lie on there with me / So I went to sleep as free as can be and the next day my son got a kidney.”
“I was in the studio the very next day,” says Mike in a statement. “I’m as inspired as ever and I’m just following the music at this point. All my heroes have been cuffed and mishandled in some way. I just thanked God in that moment of being Daniel in the lion’s den. I came out of the jailhouse in the pouring rain to my wife waiting for me, lit a joint, celebrated a bit and then woke up and got the news about my son’s kidney.”
Mike is referring to his son Pony Boy, who received a kidney transplant the day after the Grammys and appears with his father at the end of the video for “Humble Me.” “I believe that humility and worship granted me God’s grace in the face of that test, and I believe my son receiving his kidney was a blessing from God,” says Mike.
At the Grammys, Mike won in all three categories in which he was nominated, including best rap album for “Michael,” as well as best rap performance and best rap song for “Scientists & Engineers” featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane. He’s currently on his international Down By Law tour, backed by his choir the Mighty Midnight Revival.
From Variety US