Stephen A. Smith Defends Snoop, Soulja Boy Amid Backlash Over Trump Inauguration Performances

He also called out Black folks who “turned on” Ice Cube for meeting with Trump back in 2020.

Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET, Stephen A. Smith YouTube, James Devaney/GC Images.

Steven A. Smith took to his eponymous podcast this week to defend the rappers who have been slammed for performing at Pres. Donald Trump‘s Inauguration.

Nelly, Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg and Soulja Boy all hit the stage for the Crypto Ball ahead of the official proceedings, with Smith taking issue with the backlash the men received for accepting the invitation from the Republican administration. His rant included listing reasons one may have voted for Trump — something he wishes he would’ve done, he recently admitted — before defending Soulja Boy earning a hefty lump sum for his appearance. He then recognized Snoop Dogg for his work with his Snoop Youth Football League.

“This brother sending cats to college, he sending cats to the NFL, we just gon’ ignore that? Because he performed at the inauguration?” Smith questioned before calling out those who “turned against” Ice Cube after he met with Pres. Trump in 2020 to discuss his “Contract with Black America” plan.

Smith later added, “Now that the brothers come along and make something of themselves, and they got opportunities that they’re willing to exploit, and they choose to be apolitical, you wanna get in their ass?” Watch the clip below.

Stephen A. Smith goes off on the people criticizing Snoop Dogg, Nelly, and Soulja Boy for performing at President Donald Trump’s inauguration celebration and calls out those in our community who turned against Ice Cube.

(? Stephen A. Smith/YouTube) pic.twitter.com/AutqkxBTjq

— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) January 21, 2025

Soulja Boy also took to social media following the backlash to defend himself, saying Trump put money in his pockets, and that’s good enough for him.

“They paid me a bag,” the Atlanta rapper explained. “Obama ain’t never put no money in my f**king pockets, ni**a. Kamala ain’t never put no money in my f**king pockets, ni**a. Trump put money in my pockets, ni**a….Y’all suck my di*k, ni**a. Y’all want me to not answer the phone for the f**king president? This ni**a [is] the president of the motherf**king United States. Trump wasn’t even there. It wasn’t even a Trump event. It was the Crypto Ball for crypto.”

Nelly also defended his decision to perform for the inauguration, saying he “respects the office” of the president, regardless of which party is running things.

“I respect the office,” Nelly said to Willie D in a YouTube stream Saturday. “This isn’t politics. The politics, for me, it’s over. He won. He’s the president. He’s the commander-in-chief of what I would like to say is the best country in the world. It is an honor for me to perform for the president of the United States, regardless of who is in office. If President Biden would have asked me to perform, I would have performed. If Vice President Kamala Harris would have won and asked me to perform, I would have performed.”

Considering Trump’s history with African-American citizens, however, many aren’t having it, with political commentator Keith Boykin calling the performances a “dishonor to the Black community.”

“If you look at Donald Trump, the man who refused to rent to Black people in the 1970s, who tried to lead a lynch mob against five Black and Brown kids in the 1980s for the Central Park case, who refused to allow Black casino workers to have a prominent place in his casinos in Atlantic City in the 1990s, who spent five and a half years lying about Barack Obama’s birth certificate in the 2000s, who came into the office and then attacked Black people like Colin Kaepernick, who attacked Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss, for simply doing their jobs in Fulton County, election workers.

“You dishonor those people when you go and perform for this man, this man who has done nothing by dishonor Black people and just even last year, he was calling Haitian immigrants, accusing them of eating cats and dogs. This is not somebody that Black people should be associated with and pretending to normalize. We should be challenging him, and it dishonors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we honor on Monday, to celebrate this man.” Watch below.

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