Tedashii Answers Questions About 'Black Jesus' and Ferguson

VladTV airs exclusive, hard-hitting interviews from urban artists, actors and athletes on their site as well as on YouTube. The topics vary but one thing is consistent - DJ Vlad doesn't pull any punches on the questions he asks. When he talked to Christian rapper Tedashii recently, he asked questions about both the comedy Black Jesus and the horror that the world watched unfold in Ferguson, Missouri.

When DJ Vlad asked Tedashii about Black Jesus, the rapper had never heard of the show. Vlad started describing it and Tedashii started snickering. Once he had a pretty decent grasp on the premise of the show, Tedashii said, "I can appreciate people being offended to an extent. If you take someone who you love dearly or are considered to be of high regard, and you start placing them in moments and situations that don't line up, you go, 'OK this is offensive.' It's televised, which gives it a little more fuel which just adds to the number of people who are going to see it and be offended even more."

As he really thought about what the show entailed, he continued, "But at the same, two thoughts come to mind: One - the artistic license for them to be able to take something that is a cultural phenomenon and someone as known as Jesus and take a spin on it, to me it's just funny TV. But the other side of it for me is who he is playing is a character of who Christ is and that's not who Christ was."

His bottom line was simple enough: "I know my bible well enough to know the difference between who this guy's playing and who I genuinely believe in."

Another part of the interview found Vlad asking what Tedashii though about the Michael Brown killing and the Ferguson riots. It turns out that the rapper has quite a few law enforcement officers in his family. While one would think that that fact would automatically put him on the "blue" side of the coin, they would be wrong. He watched the news coverage like the rest of the world and was both surprised and dismayed by some of what he saw. He shared his initial thoughts, saying, "Even the cops who are now dressed in militarized gear on the streets walk with their guns aimed up at people and you're like, 'Man you know military, you don't aim unless you know the trigger is about to be pulled. Why are you aiming at people? That kind of incites someone to want to fight back.'"

Having lost a child himself, Tedashii said that his biggest concern was the parents of Michael Brown and what they were going through. "For this moment, can a mom grieve, losing her son without the politicians jockeying for views on TV or for somebody to have a social political stance?" he asked.

While he could understand some of the push behind the riots, he wasn't on board with them. He said, "People riot because they feel like they're not being heard, but in the same turn, I feel like it hurts. It kind of shoots us in the foot when it comes to progression."