“He made a mistake. Let it go”: Stephen Jackson reveals Lil Yachty apologized to him over George Floyd lyric, calls him a “smart young man”

Former NBA star Stephen Jackson recently shared that rapper Lil Yachty personally apologized to him for referencing George Floyd in a new song lyric, ending a brief but intense controversy.

On Friday, August 15, 2025, Jackson posted a video on Instagram addressing the situation. In the clip, he is seen saying:

“I spoke to him. He’s a smart young man. He’s winning for a reason. He made a mistake, he apologized, and we moved on from it. It’s over with. Won’t be doing no interviews … He made a mistake. Let it go.”

The apology followed public criticism after Lil Yachty previewed the track about 43 minutes into a Plaqueboymax livestream on Thursday, August 14, 2025, as reported by Complex. The unreleased song, set for the Concrete Boys’ upcoming compilation, included the controversial line referencing the 2020 death of George Floyd that made national headlines for weeks.

“Put my knee up on her neck, I went George Floyd,” the lyrics stated.

The song preview during the August 14, 2025 livestream (Image via YouTube/plaqueboymax)

Lil Yachty received immediate backlash for the lyric

Stephen Jackson, who grew up with Floyd in Houston’s Third Ward, was among the first to publicly condemn the lyric. In a now-deleted August 14 post tagging Lil Yachty, he said that the bar was “weak” and disrespectful, as reported by Billboard on August 15, 2025.

“Lil Yachty, bro ... you think you saying George Floyd’s name, and trying to use his name in a bar, that's gonna make people like your wack-a** music? ... That sh*t weak. Y’all the only era that feel like demeaning the dead and saying that sh*t is cool. It ain’t. It’s me and the whole Third Ward and the whole Houston, Texas, riding behind G man,” he said in the video.

He later added:

"Don’t ever say his name, bro. None of y’all knew G. Nothing about him … Let somebody die in your family. We gon do a whole skit about it. It’s only you wack Sambo a** n***as that do sh*t like that.”

George Floyd’s brother, Terrence, also spoke about the controversial lyrics. Speaking to The Breakfast Club co-host Loren Lorosa, he called the lyric “inconsiderate” and urged Lil Yachty to change it, as reported by Complex on August 15, 2025.

“Sometimes this generation doesn’t pay attention to what they say. They just want to make a song and get on the charts … It’s really inconsiderate. You should think about what you’re writing … Let my brother rest in peace. It disturbs the family’s peace,” Terrence said.

He added that Floyd’s name should only be invoked to send “a better message", and George Floyd's legacy should live on beyond what happened to him.

George Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020, after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. Chauvin was later convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, as reported by Complex.

Stephen Jackson, who was a close friend of Floyd, has continued to defend his legacy in the years since.

Lil Yachty talks about working with Drake

Lil Yachty recently credited manifestation for bringing him together with Drake. As reported in a August 14, 2025, Billboard report, the rapper said his long-standing collaboration with the Toronto star was a consequence of an acid trip from years ago.

“I manifested it, bro,” Yachty recalled during a recent appearance with his Concrete Boys collective on PlaqueBoyMax’s livestream.

“I was doing acid one night and I was like, ‘Man, I would really love to work with Drake. That’s one of my favorite rappers.’ I was just talking to the abyss. I was speaking to, like, a higher power, and I manifested it. I did," he said.

Lil Yachty added that the friendship developed gradually, and that his rap career and fame were all because of "manifestation". During the stream, he also mentioned big industry names like Tyler and Rocky speaking to him on FaceTime when he was in high school.

“All this sh*t is manifestation. You gotta speak this sh*t into existence. I’ll never forget, I used to be in high school and Tyler and Rocky used to FaceTime me,” he said.

Drake and Lil Yachty's first official collaboration came in 2020 with Yachty’s Oprah’s Bank Account. Since then, Lil Yachty has contributed as a featured artist, writer, and producer to Drake’s Her Loss and For All the Dogs.

About the author

Devangee Halder is a Food and Pop culture writer at Sportskeeda. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and a Master's Degree in International Studies. A bibliophile and foodie, her academic background, with the intersection of history and cultural studies, has deepened her love for reading and writing.

With over a year of experience, including an internship at Indian Express, which she landed through correspondence with editor Raj Kumar Jha, she transitioned into her current role at this company. As a journalist covering gastronomic trends and other news from the F&B Industry, she veers away from prescriptivism, and instead prioritizes questioning of current narratives, and forwarding relevant news, ensuring they are devoid of sensationalism.

Devangee approaches food with an interdisciplinary lens, locating it vis-à-vis areas such as culture, history, memory, and economics, within which culinary traditions found fruition and subsequently flourished. When not working, she enjoys cooking and reading, alongside her newfound interest in weightlifting. Among her favorite personalities are Sarah Todd and Vikas Khanna, and she admires the late chef Jock Zonfrillo for his work on indigenous food habits and ingredients.

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Edited by Arunava Dutta