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Hopsin talks Getting Arrested by Racist Police Officer, New Album Knock Madness

Part 5 of this very candid interview starts with Hopsin describing to Nick Huff Barili what is going through his mind as he gets ready to put out his first album in 3 years. Hopsin also shares experience of getting arrested by a racist cop last year for standing on a sidewalk while taking picture with a white girl fan.

“After I released the ‘Illmind 5’ thing, I was in my purest form ever,” said Hopsin. “I didn’t cuss. I didn’t do anything…I felt like I was an angel. I didn’t think I was better than other people, but I was just trying to only spread positive energy. People came up, I gave them a hug. I gave them a smile. Everything was cool…Everybody left on a good note. No fight happened. And then a girl came up after that, said can she have a picture. I took a picture with her. My business partner Dame he had the camera about to take a picture. A cop rides by on his bike like ‘Everybody move. Watch out.’ Whatever. And he kinda just almost hit us. And then a minute later he came back. He stopped and put the little kickstand down. And was like ‘Did you hear what I said, guys?'”

Hopsin says the moment intensified when the police officer parked his bike and began to speak directly to him, asking the rapper if he had heard his request to clear the sidewalk. The exchange ultimately resulted in Hopsin being the only one to be arrested by the officer.

“He gets up off his bike. He’s talking to both of us at first,” he said. “He’s like ‘You guys didn’t hear me? I just rode through on the bike. You didn’t see me come through?’ ‘Yeah we saw you, but we didn’t hear you say clear the sidewalk. We’re just standing on the sidewalk. We didn’t know that was a bad thing.’ So, I was mainly talking and then he starts looking at me and he’s like ‘So, you saw me come through and you didn’t clear the sidewalk? And you didn’t hear me?’ And I was like ‘no.’ And then I’m kinda looking at him and I’m like ‘What’s going on here? Are you serious right now? I’m on the sidewalk. There’s nothing even going on.’ And then he looks at me and he’s like ‘You know you’re breaking the law right now, right?’ And then right when he said that my heart dropped. And then I saw a look in his eyes where he was like that—it’s like a racist twinkling…And my heard dropped, but I was like I kinda had a little smirk on my face…He pulls out the handcuffs and just only arrests me. Literally, only arrests me. And I did nothing at all.”

“They put me in a little box in the back of a truck,” said Hopsin. “It looked like a little doggy thing you would take a dog in. And they put me in the back and I had to literally put my head between my legs and crouch down in there and the shit was like that small. My back started hurting. I was there for like 30 minutes. They didn’t give a fuck. And I was like ‘Why would they put me in this little tank.’ I started crying in there. I was crying. I was crying because they took—I wasn’t a human anymore. I was an animal…In situations if you’re dark-skinned; if you’re black you’re going to jail, period. It doesn’t fuckin matter.”

We talked to Hopsin for more than 2 hours as he opened up about a series of topics. Tune in next week for part 6 with Hopsin only at www.hardknock.tv

Knock Madness comes out Nov. 26th!