This weekend, Megan Thee Stallion made her debut on Saturday Night Live, performing “Don’t Stop” with Young Thug, and “Savage” (sans Beyoncé). However, she also used her slot as the first musical guest of the show’s new season to demand justice for Breonna Taylor.
The call for justice came partway through the performance of “Savage”, when Megan Thee Stallion and her dancers stopped to play audio from Malcolm X’s “Who Taught You To Hate Yourself” speech, including the line: “The most disrespected, unprotected, neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
Megan then addressed the audience herself, saying: “We need to protect our Black women, and love our Black women, because at the end of the day we need our Black women. We need to protect our Black men and stand up for our Black men, because at the end of the day we’re tired of seeing hashtags of our Black men.”
The rapper also made direct reference to Breonna Taylor’s case, via audio of the activist Tamika Mallory calling out Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron over his handling of Taylor’s death at the hands of Louisville police officers. In the clip, Mallory calls Cameron: “no different than the sellout negroes that sold our people into slavery.”
Last month, protests demanding justice for Breonna Taylor were reignited by a grand jury decision to not directly charge the police officers involved in her death. Subsequently, documents from the private proceeding have been made public, revealing conflicting reports about the failed narcotics raid in which she was killed.
Watch Megan Thee Stallion’s performance of “Savage” and call for justice below.