What is Tory Lanez trying to say with his new album, Peterson?

Canadian rapper Tory Lanez has dropped a new album from prison.

Titled Peterson, a nod to his real last name, the album comes after Lanez was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison for shooting and wounding fellow hip-hop artist Megan Thee Stallion.

But the project raises questions. For one, how was it possible to produce and release an album of this quality from behind bars? And does the content suggest Lanez has evolved as a result of his conviction and experience in prison — or does it signal that he's angling for a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump?

Today on Commotion, culture critics Matt Amha and Pablo The Don join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss the album and the ethical questions raised by its existence.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Pablo, before we get into the politics around Tory's new record and this idea of him recording this album from prison, how are you feeling about the album itself that you heard?

Pablo: I think there's two things about this album that intrigued me. Number one was it's him basically begging for his freedom in any way possible, whether it's trying to get his fans or maybe even critics on his side, to asking Donald Trump to please come save him by using AI voice of him to basically try and say he's innocent of what he's done or been convicted of. I do think there's a big moral, but also a big, just, "how did he do this" question, because it sounds so professionally done. But in general, I think Tory is just begging for his freedom.

Elamin: I'm going to get back to the "how" in just a moment. Matt, in terms of the record that you heard, what about you? How do you feel about it?

Matt: Yeah, I mean, I think in a lot of ways the album is essentially a male grievance manifesto. I think this is him. He's managed to do a really interesting thing, which is basically frame himself as a Black political prisoner, as the victim of a witch hunt, as a martyr of some kind, and LARPing as a freedom fighter throughout the entire body of work. There's no mention of the fact that he's in prison not for challenging a system or engaging in some kind of revolutionary act, but for literally shooting a defenseless Black woman in public, right?

But then also to the point that Pablo just made, I think that he is working up a popular movement that he hopes will eventually land on the desk of the U.S. president. Exactly what has just been said. You know, he literally features Donald Trump. Trump is someone that is known to be vulnerable to flattery, but also to men with power and to hyper-masculinity. Trump has also been known to issue pardons for others in hip-hop, like Kodak Black and the founder of Death Row Records, so this is for sure Tory angling for a pardon of some kind.

Elamin: I can think of no more unflattering words than "a male grievance manifesto." Just that phrase, I'm like, okay, I'm out. Tory is calling this an album that's recorded in prison for prisoners, by prisoners, in real time. I think that's what you were referring to, Matt, when you say he's LARPing as a freedom fighter. Matt, you wanted to talk about Guide Me Through The Storm…. Matt, it's not going to be any news to anybody that the carceral justice system has been deeply, deeply racist for a long time in America. That's a narrative that is out there. Tory Lanez is weaving that narrative throughout this album. Why is that the song that you wanted to pick?

Matt: If you were to hear that [song] out of context, you'd think that was a sermon dedicated to a revolutionary of some kind. It's pretty incredible. But that's an interlude by his father, in which his dad is kind of eulogizing him in some ways, canonizing him and venerating his child, who he believes to be a victim of an unjust system. He goes on in that same sermon to literally connect the imprisonment of Tory Lanez to the sale of African slaves on the New York Stock Exchange, right? Framing the incarceration of his child as a continuation of the historical persecution of Black people. Again, this is a man in prison for shooting a defenseless Black woman. So there's a certain incoherence that can be really difficult to listen to.

It's also just deeply sad…. This is a pious Black man essentially mourning the loss of his child and trying to come to terms with the fact that his son is responsible for a heinous act of violence, and you can't seem to make sense of it, you know? And when we can't make sense of things, we tend to turn to delusion. And that's exactly what that is. And so as a human being and as a Black man, I hear that and it registers to me as pain, despite the fact he happens to be the father of a man that did a terrible thing.

Elamin: Yeah, I don't think delusion is a small word. And I think you're using that very deliberately, very intentionally here. Pablo, what's the cut that stood out for you?

Pablo: He's got a song called Free Me. There's this spiritual element throughout the entire album, but specifically on this song that just really irks my soul…. It is, I feel as though, the classic "Black man goes to jail." This is what they pull on, this connection to God. Suddenly they found God. They're in all the prison sermon sessions, things like that, and suddenly they found Jesus. They found the light. And now they need to be freed because they're going to come out and live a better life, and they're going to live in accordance to Jesus. It almost never happens.

There are some people who have truly found God within prison. But Tory Lanez, based on the rest of this album, is not one of them. And it just bothers me when we're bringing in these elements because, as Matt said, you're tying yourself not only to these political revolutionaries, but now you're tying yourself to God…. It feels like he's punching air, just trying to find anything to grasp onto in order to get people to rally behind him, to potentially start something that would end in his pardon for, again, shooting a defenseless Black woman.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.