And Finally Artist News

Kodak Black will still give money to charity, despite deleted tweet, says lawyer

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 26 January 2021

Kodak Black’s lawyer has responded to reports that the rapper deleted a tweet offering $1 million in charitable donations in exchange for a pardon. Yes, he did make that offer in a tweet and then delete it. But no, not for the reasons you think. Unless the reason you’re thinking of is, “that seems like a silly thing to tweet”.

It was reported by TMZ yesterday that the tweet, which was originally posted in November last year, had been deleted. The article implies that the removal of the tweet was a recent occurrence. Not so, says attorney Bradford Cohen. Actually, it was taken down almost as soon as it was posted, he adds.

Black’s tweet read: “If the president them free me, I’m gonna spend one million on charity within the first year I’m out. That’s on everything”.

The rapper’s 46 month prison sentence – a result of him falsifying paperwork to obtain a firearm – was commuted by Donald Trump on his way out of the White House last week, setting Black free halfway through his jail time. The implication of deleting his tweet, as presented by TMZ, is that Black is now going back on his charitable offer.

Again, not so, says Cohen. Kodak Black remains a charitable guy. But the lawyer didn’t think offering money for a pardon was a good look, so advised the tweet’s deletion shortly after it was posted.

“I didn’t think I had to address this because it’s a non-story”, he writes in an Instagram post. “But due to a slow news day, TMZ wishes to address a tweet that was sent out from Kodak Black’s Twitter two months ago and deleted within a day or two of posting at my direction”.

“A statement promising something for something in exchange is not appropriate”, he continues. “And although Kodak has always given [to] charity his whole career and will continue to do charity, not in exchange for anything, some think this is a story. It isn’t”.

“Instead of harping on [about] a young black man and how much charity he does, why don’t we take a look at the amount of charity the writers of these articles do. Last week Kodak pledged 100k to setting up a scholarship fund in the name of Meadow Pollack, the week before he donated 50k to [the] barstool fund to help small businesses. That’s 150k and he’s been out five days”.

Cohen made a similar statement to TMZ, which it published in full – although it did not respond to his question about the charitable efforts of the article’s writer. To be fair, I’m not sure it would be viable for a journalist to commit several years worth of salary to charity just to make a point. Also, charity isn’t a competition. Still, I guess it might also be worth asking how much of any fees Black pays him Cohen then gives to charity, just to gauge things.

When it was announced that Black would be released early from prison at the behest of the then US president, a White House statement praised the rapper’s “numerous philanthropic efforts”. So it could be argued that it looks like Black’s promise of large charitable donations – even if taken off Twitter quite quickly – still aided his freedom. Although, given how much Trump seems to have enjoyed randomly pardoning people, such a gesture may not have been required.

Meanwhile, however many charitable donations may have been made, the rapper still has legal woes. Black may have been absolved of all federal charges by Trump. However, a presidential pardon does not bring to an end to state charges. So, in South Carolina, Black is still facing a charge of “first-degree criminal sexual conduct”, following an accusation that he raped a woman after a live show in 2016.

In other news, as well as giving money to charity, the rapper has also found time to get into a recording studio since his release. Last week he put out a new track, ‘Last Day In’, making reference to his pardon.

Listen to ‘Last Day In’ here: