It sounds like there was radio silence when rapper A$AP Rocky did not respond to the White House ASAP despite President Donald Trump cheering on his release from Swedish jail earlier this month.
According to Yahoo! News, when the rapper (his real name is Rakim Mayers) was released and allowed to return to the U.S. upon the conclusion of his trial on August 2, Trump associates Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier — an Ohio pastor and the co-chairman of the Urban Revitalization Coalition, respectively, who’ve become a regular presence at the White House at events focused on addressing African-American issues — said they began reaching out to the rapper’s team within hours of the rapper’s release.
Despite how they were expecting a thank-you, Scott told Yahoo that they didn’t get a call back.
“We don’t get a call at all,” Scott told Yahoo, claiming that Rocky’s manager John Ehmann previously told them that he would have no qualms with the rapper issuing a thank you to the White House in light of Trump jumping to his defense by calling out the Swedish prime minister for letting “our African American Community down” over the artist’s arrest.
Scott said that when they got Ehmann on the phone, Ehmann “started making all these excuses” about Rocky needing time to travel and “rest.”
Scott added that he also told Ehmann, “I hope you guys aren’t going back on what you said you were going to do.”
After the rapper posted to Instagram on the day of his release, Scott kept pressing Ehmann on when Rocky would thank the White House.
Scott told Yahoo that it was “embarrassing” to have to tell Jared Kushner, who reached out to him after Rocky’s release, that they had not heard from the rapper at all.
Lanier claimed that despite Ehmann promising to put a Kushner-Rocky call together within “48 hours,” Ehmann stopped “returning our text messages.” Lanier said that he and Scott still continued pressing Rocky’s team.
After Rocky posted another message of gratitude after a panel of judges announced on August 14 that they found Rocky guilty of assault but would not require him to serve any prison time, Lanier and Scott said they were upset that there was no acknowledgement of the White House’s push for the rapper’s release.
Lanier and Scott said they were left disappointed that Rocky didn’t even bother to thank the White House privately.
“All he had to do was do a two-minute call to say thank you,” Scott said. “Rocky hasn’t even called us and said, ‘Hey, man, thank you guys. I appreciate it,’ in private. Just in private.”
Read Yahoo News’ report here.
