Influence
There is an annual Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival held in Maryland. Kunta Kinte also inspired a reggae rhythm of the same name, performed by artists including The Revolutionaries, and Mad Professor, and an album, Kunta Kinte Roots by Ranking Dread. There is also a band of the same name. He is mentioned in the Kanye West song "Never Let Me Down" from the College Dropout album. He is also mentioned in the songs "Whip It" by Lil Wayne, "Work It" by Missy Elliott, "Finale" by Young Money, A Tribe Called Quest's "8 Million Stories", Roots Manuva's "Snake Bite", Ghostface Killah's "Black Jesus", Akir's "Kunta Kinte", "Too" by YG, Busta Rhymes's "Rhymes Galore", Ice Cube's "No Vaseline", Keymark's Pookey Marsum, The Coup's "My Favourite Mutiny", Bloodhound Gang's "A Lapdance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying", and Roll Deep's "Roll Deep Rally" which is featured on the soundtrack for the 2010 film Shank. Flow Dan can be heard saying "I'm on the run like Kunta..." on RZA's "Must Be Bobby". He also influences the Bay Area rapper Keak da Sneak, who was nicknamed Kunta Kinte.
An early scene in the film Boyz n the Hood includes one of the characters asking Jason "Furious" Styles' son Tré, "Who's he think you is, Kunta Kinte?" after seeing the chores that the son must complete. On an episode of the HBO drama The Wire, Baltimore police detective Bunk Moreland derogatorily refers to an African seaman as "Kunta Kinte" during an interrogation in which the seaman refuses to speak English. In the film Coming to America, Akeem (an African prince posing as a poor exchange student) is teased by the employees and patrons of a barbershop, who good-naturedly refer to him as "Kunta Kinte". The young black protagonist Mookie in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing declares that "slave days are over, my name ain't Kunta Kinte" while complaining about his boss and his job delivering pizza.
In the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith's character says, in regard to being punished, "Why don't you just do me like Kunta Kinte and cut off my foot?"
On the January 19, 2002 broadcast of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update sketch, host Jimmy Fallon, while reporting on ABC's refusal to show the Roots 25th anniversary special, gave a quick recap on the Roots story, stating: "For those of you who don’t remember Roots, it follows a saga of Kunta Kinte from young African tribesman, to slavery, to becoming literate, and eventually being the top of his class at Starfleet Academy".
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