If you weren’t following this week’s controversy over Braid Paisley and LL Cool J’s well-intentioned yet awful collaboration song “Accidental Racist,” you can read all about it here and here . For the initiated, Saturday Night Live referenced the hullabaloo during the “Weekend Update” segment with Seth Meyers.
Paisley and LL made national headlines last week over “Accidental Racist,” a song about opening dialogue between Conferderate flag flying Southerners and “hood” African Americans, which most publications agreed was well meaning, but … well … accidentally racist.
On last night’s SNL , the two were lampooned during “Weekend Update with Seth Meyers” with Jason Sudeikis playing Paisley and Keenan Thompson playing rap legend LL Cool J.
During the interview, the two declared victory over racism with their song, but admitted that the track wasn’t perfect or “even good. Musically or lyrically.” They also performed a deleted verse from the song.
SNL didn’t pull any punches in their criticism of the song , making both Paisley and LL Cool J embarrassing caricatures of themselves.
“What I wanted to do was show folks the gritty racial reality of a man at Starbucks talking to his barista,” proclaimed Sudeikis.
“I answered the hpone the way I always do: brrrrrr! ‘I’ll do it!’” claimed Thompson. “I knew I was risking my reputation as the most lowdown cast member of NCIS.”
Thompson’s LL gave further reference to the rapper’s television career, singing: “If you think NCIS is good, I’ll forget the Aryan Brotherhood.”
Also notable was Vince Vaughn’s opening monologue , during which he said: “The most important people that are here tonight is not the cast, it’s not the writers, it’s not the crew and contrary to popular belief it’s not me… the most important people here tonight is the audience. I wanna make sure that we’re all on the same page… make sure we’re off to the right start.”
He then went on to confiscate an audience member’s cell phone and kick two others out of their seats.
Watch the video of SNL’ s “Accidental Racist” send-up below:
