During a recent radio interview, Sevendust‘s Lajon Witherspoon spoke on being black in heavy metal, which is a a predominately white music genre. When asked how his role as a metal singer can best affect positive change when it comes to racial equality in metal, he said, “No one has really tapped into that and asked me anything. Today, we definitely can see that there's been a lack of equality in this world that's being put in the forefront. Luckily, in the industry that I'm in, in the metal community, I feel like that's definitely something that's not tolerated, as far as I've seen.”
He continued, “I feel like this community is incredibly welcoming and I've been very blessed to be in it. I also feel like there's definitely a lot of people that are hiding behind masks, who are racist, out there. But if there's anything that I can do, I will always be a leader in bringing peace, love and equality to this industry and to what I do.”
He added, “I can say love sees no color, but I do believe that people do see color, obviously. But I still want to bring everyone together and it not be a problem. In our community, there's everybody — Black, White, Asian, etc. — and that's what this world should get. We should definitely get to that page and to the point, again, to where we don't have that problem. I pray that we get there.”