Hear Kurt Cobain Claim White People Shouldn’t Rap in Rare Interview

Kurt Cobain offered his thoughts on hip-hop and claimed white people shouldn’t rap in a recently unearthed interview conducted September 20th, 1991, four days before Nirvana released Nevermind.

The interview was posted by Roberto LoRusso, who conducted the interview when he was 21 and working as a DJ for his college radio station CHRW in London, Ontario. In a description, LoRusso apologized profusely for the quality of the interview, which he called “objectively terrible by all journalistic standards,” noting, “my questions were poorly crafted because my research was incomplete and inaccurate.

“To Mr. Cobain’s credit, he was remarkably patient and kind considering how not well-prepared I was,” LoRusso added.

Nevertheless, LoRusso’s interview with Cobain finds the rocker discussing the early-Nineties battle over censorship and the arts and Nirvana’s decision to move from Sub Pop to Geffen Records. At the 7:39 mark, LoRusso asks Cobain about an alleged quote he gave during another interview, in which he said that white people shouldn’t rap because “the white man has ripped off the black man long enough.”

While Cobain wonders if he was drunk at the time, he adds, “I’m a fan of rap music but most of it is so misogynist that I can’t even deal with it. I’m really not that much of a fan. I totally respect and love it because it’s one of the only original forms of music that’s been introduced. But the white man doing rap is just like watching a white man dance. We can’t dance, we can’t rap.”

LoRusso then awkwardly claims he has that rare ability to dance, prompting Cobain to quip, “Great, you’ve had your kneecaps removed at birth.”