The surprise endorsement came after Big Boi was questioned about his earlier admission to the Huffington Post that he was a libertarian, and that he had voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson in the 2012 presidential election. At the time, he had couched his stance in similar views, explaining that he was for “anything that benefits the public and not just big banking”; the rapper now eschews the libertarian label and says he’s a “humanitarian.”

Big Boi’s backing of Sanders follows the Senator’s adoption of a wide-ranging racial justice platform, prompted by widely publicized campaign disruptions by the Black Lives Matter movement in August. Among other things, the platform proposes the demilitarization of the police, mandatory body cameras for law enforcement officers, the dismantling of private prisons, and bringing an end to the “War on Drugs.”