Benny the Butcher transforms Kendrick Lamar’s “We Cry Together” into “Welcome to the States,” a song about the May 14 shooting in Buffalo.
The Griselda rapper uses The Alchemist-produced beat to reflect on the tragedy in his hometown. The music video notes the abundance of mass shootings in America before Benny the Butcher begins his verse.
“Welcome to the states, where we dying over our skin color and race/Ideologies formed off hate, now the grocery stores ain’t safe/They shoot us unarmed but they took in Payton [Gendron] without a scrape/I guess, great/A life saved but it’s never this color face,” Benny the Butcher raps.
He adds, “Lately, I’ve been traveling abroad as an entertainer/And frankly, it made me look at my country a little bit stranger/Mass shooting in my city eight minutes from where my block at/Saw innocent people shot at a supermarket I shop at.”
Benny the Butcher’s video encourages viewers to support the Buffalo Survivors Fund. The National Compassion Fund and Tops Friendly Market created the fundraiser to help the families of victims and others affected by the deadly shooting.
Payton Gendron was indicted on murder, hate crime and domestic terrorism charges for the Buffalo mass shooting. The 18-year-old gunman shot and killed 10 Black people at a Tops grocery. Three other victims were wounded in the attack.
Watch Benny the Butcher’s “Welcome to the States” below.