Young Buck Defends ‘The Get Back:’ ‘We’ve Got the Right to Protect Our Lives From Crooked Officers’ [WATCH]

Young Buck's song "The Get Back" has been stirring controversy since the Memphis rapper released the incendiary track in the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Both men were killed by police officers, adding to an ongoing epidemic of black people being killed during interactions with cops. In the song, Buck raps that he's “Laying on the roof, waiting on 12 to come through / .223 shells, what the hell they gonna do?" and the rapper spoke to TMZ Live about the song and it's message.

“I do feel like just us as people, we do got the right to be able to protect our lives from those crooked police officers that feel like they’ve got the right to take your innocent life--black or white,” Buck explained. “At the end of the day, it’s like this, I didn’t even make it to TMZ Live until an innocent life was [taken],” he says. “Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.”

And Buck addressed the shootings in Dallas that left five police officers dead.

“My condolences goes out to the lives that was lost in Dallas, but I do feel like we have a right to protect our lives,” Buck explained. “Look at it this way, for 400 years back and forth, we’ve been having racial issues…If you do follow the rules such as Philando did and do go through those things and you’re put in a position where you feel like this officer is not paying you no attention other than looking outside of whatever this situation may be and you feel like your life is threatened, you do have the right to protect your life and you do have the choice to make that decision.”

Buck praised The Game and Snoop Dogg for their efforts in raising awareness through marches and rallies--but admitted that he may have a different perspective.

“I’m here. I’m in the ghetto,” he said. “My feet is really here. It’s a big difference I feel like. I feel the pain. I bear my own bruises from police brutality. I go through these things on a day-to-day struggle, so my rage is fueled from a whole different kind of fire, my brother. But I do salute everything that Snoop and Game doing. Whatever it takes to get our voice be heard, that’s what I'm doing.”

Listen to Young Buck's "The Get Back" below.