Aside from Lakeith Stanfield's prolific acting career, he dabbles in rap too. He has released music under the name MOORS, which is a duo made up of him and Los Angeles-based producer HH (real name Hrishikesh Hirway). However, Stanfield's latest song, "Automatic" was shared on YouTube on Saturday under his own name. According to the post description, "Automatic" is a single off a forthcoming project titled Self Control.
While the song slaps, what has people talking is the shot he takes at Charlamagne tha God on it. This beef stems from Stanfield calling out Charlamagne's radio show, The Breakfast Club, for providing a poor representation of the black community. The Photograph star posted a text image on Instagram that read, "The shade room, lipstick Alley, breakfast club, worldstar, and many others are or anti black." He then expounded on this take in the caption: "It’s a fact that a lot of these platforms are usually or tend to be feeding grounds for negative reinforcement toward BLACK 'nonconformists'. They bolster faux vanity and hold a white supremacists scope over black men and women often highlighting negative attributes and downplaying mind expanding ones. They serve as bottomless coward consumption pits and digital, audio, or otherwise slave mentatilty museums. @ all you want."
Charlamagne responded to this criticism by crowning Stanfield "Donkey Of The Day" on his show and lacing into him for it. "What you won't do is ever fix your lips to call one of my platforms, especially The Breakfast Club, anti-black," Charlamagne said. "I'm not going to sit here and act like we've got everything right all the time, because we haven't... but LaKeith Stanfield, don't you ever fix your raggedy-ass mouth to call the author of Black Privilege, because I do believe it's a privilege to be black, anti-black." Charlamagne added that Stanfield would only diss black outlets because he doesn't rely on them for support in Hollywood.
A few days after Charlamagne's roast, Stanfield fired back with "Automatic." On the song, he raps: “I’m Black, I’m Atlanta/I’m the Hall of Fame/Insecure, you’re afraid/You’re a Charlagmagne." The cover art for the track illustrates the radio host as the racist caricature, Black Sambo. Stanfield also addressed Charlamagne's response by sharing a lengthy video in which he defends his argument.