Pepsi officials will meet today (May 8) with Emmett Till’s family along with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton. The beverage company has suffered a pair of recent media blows after controversies involving Lil Wayne and Tyler, The Creator became part of the national conversation.
The meeting was sparked by way of pressure on Mountain Dew, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, to drop Wayne from endorsing its product after an offensive lyric referencing the slain teen, angered the family. Rev. Sharpton released a statement last Friday (May 3) via his National Action Network page stating he and the Till family requested an audience with PepsiCo to spark dialogue in hopes to address the “sensitizing of corporate America,” and hammer out other details.
Mountain Dew was forced to drop Wayne following a relentless push by the Till family, even after he publicly apologized for his lines on Future’s “Karate Chop (Remix).” A report from the Associated Press revealed that Sharpton and the Till family will head to PepsiCo’s New York headquarters to hold the meeting.
Weezy is pushing ahead with other business endeavors, however. The New Orleans native just released his new SPECTRE shoe line by way of a partnership with the SUPRA shoe company.
—
Photo: AP
