Kendrick Lamar has taken a lot of criticism for his recent BET Awards performance – mostly from folks who have no idea what they’re talking about.
In any case, the Compton rapper is pushing back at his critics, namely Fox News pundit Geraldo Rivera, who said hip-hop has done more damage to young blacks than racism recently.
But that’s oversimplifying black struggle, Lamar contends.
“I think his attempt is really diluting the real problem, which is the senseless acts of killing of these young boys out here,” Lamar told TMZ Live. “I think, for the most part, it’s avoiding the truth,” Lamar said. “This is reality. This is my world. This is what I talk about in my music. You can’t dilute that […].”
Rivera and other conservative commentators took issue with Lamar’s performance – him standing on top of a “vandalized” police vehicle and rapping lyrics from his new song, “Alright.”
“Me being on the cop car, that’s a performance piece after these senseless acts,” Lamar said. “Of course I’m going to be enraged about what’s going on out here. Of course I’m going to speak on it. But at the same time, you can’t dilute the overall message: Yeah, we angry about what’s going on. Yeah, we see what’s going on, but you can’t do that. You can’t take away our hope that things will be okay at the end of the day. Hip-hop is not the problem, our reality is the problem in the situation.”
Rivera’s original critique came earlier this week:
This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years. This is exactly the wrong message. Then to conflate what happened in the Charleston church in South Carolina with the tragic incidents involving excessive use of force by cops is to equate that racist killer with these cops. It’s so wrong. It’s so counterproductive.
Point, Kendrick.