Fresh off being named on Coachella’s lineup for the second straight year, Run the Jewels rapper and social justice activist Killer Mike, stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to talk politics and social injustice. The interview starts with jokes about his attire but quickly turns into an intelligent and serious conversation about his views on how to fix America.

“If white people are just now discovering that it’s bad for black or working class people in America, they’re a lot more blind than I thought, and a lot more choosing to be ignorant than I thought. Things we’re discussing right now, we discussed in 1990, 1980, 1970, and 1960. And [we’ll keep discussing them] until we call a spade a spade, and say this problem is coming from conditions that we’re creating or allowing to happen, as a white group of people who hold a certain amount of power…” The Atlanta rapper encourages the people to google Jane Elliot’s Blue and Brown Eye Experiment, saying “it will actually grow you”.

Later in the interview, he reflects on why he is “feeling the Bern” for the next US Presidential election. “Dr. King in his last two years of life talked about a poor people’s campaign, organising unions on the behalf of poor workers, organising against a war machine that was perpetuating violence in Vietnam…Bernie Sanders is the only politician who has consistently for 50 years taken that social justice platform into politics. Right now, we have an opportunity to elect someone who is directly out of the philosophy of King-ian non-violence. We can directly elect someone that cares about poor people, cares about women, gays, black rights, cares about lives that don’t look like his. This opportunity in history is not going to come in another 20 years.”

The light bantered conversation between Colbert and Mike seems to be much of what this world needs, an open environment to be honest about perspective, discuss problems, and propose healthy solutions for everyone. The Huffington Post is launching a podcast, hosted by Killer Mike, on Reconstruction, in February. Hopefully, that’ll be a success and we’ll get to hear a lot more from Mike in the future. Check the interview above.

• Words: Livelle Mobley