Lil Jon Empathizes With Wrestler Whose Dreadlocks Got The Chop

The rapper had a few choice words for a ref who forced a wrestler to cut his dreadlocks.

Lil Jon attends "Planet Pepsi" Pre-Super Bowl LIII party, featuring Travis Scott, on February 1, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images


When it comes to appreciating a nice pair of dreadlocks, nobody has better taste than Lil Jon. An incident that started back in December dealing with dreads has the rapper speaking out about the importance of the style to the many that wear it. That month, a video went viral on social media featuring a high school wrestler who was given a difficult choice. The referee in the match told the wrestler he either had to cut his dreads off before wrestling, or he would forfeit the match. Of course, the high school wrestler had to make his decision mere minutes before the match was due to start, according to TMZ.

For the many who saw the video, the referee’s actions seemed massively unfair, especially given that he only provided minutes for the student to decide. Of course, the ref was called a bevy of names on social media. Now, that same referee filed a lawsuit for defamation against those who called him a racist for forcing the haircut. However, Lil Jon recently spoke out about the issue and feels the referee does not deserve any sympathy for forcing a decision like that on a high school kid.

Lil Jon was one of the many that saw the dreadlock decision forced on the young wrestler via social media and has seen the footage many times. The referee, Alan Maloney, forced the visibly upset Andrew Johnson, who is black, to shed his dreads just minutes before Johnson had to wrestle. If Johnson had not cut his hair, he would have been forced to lose the fight, and he did not want to let his team down. After the video became so public, Maloney was banned from being the referee for any other matches, and was called a racist. Furthermore, it was recently discovered that Maloney does have a previous racial transgression on his records. Regardless, Maloney felt he was in the right and others were in the wrong, and filed a defamation lawsuit for $100,000.

“Dreads are considered to be a man’s crown. That’s a lion’s mane. It’s sacred. So, for this guy to be blatantly racist and now claim he can’t get work, well, too bad. You shouldn’t have [done that]. He should blame social media. You can’t blame nobody else for that,” Lil Jon said, according to Hot New Hip Hop.

Lil Jon feels that referee Maloney has basically no case and no reason to file a lawsuit since his actions forcing a young teenager to cut his dreads imply that Maloney must be a racist. As a result, the rapper feels Maloney’s defamation claims are ridiculous. The incident shocked so many people, the video not only went viral, but the story was also shown on international news. To Lil Jon, who has long worn dreadlocks, Maloney’s actions are unforgivable.