Once again hip-hop is under attack by mainstream media. Kendrick Lamar performed his To Pimp A Butterfly single “Alright” from atop of a police cruiser at the 2015 BET Awards last weekend. In my opinion he used his time wisely to point out the injustices of African Americans. Fox News has now taken aim at Lamar, calling out his music, along with hip-hop in general is “not helpful” and that it has, in the warped view of pundit Geraldo Rivera “done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years.”
Lets be clear there are many hip-hop artist that use their craft to speak the truth about society and social injustices such as Dead Prez, Killer Mike, Lauryn Hill, J Cole, Talib Kweli, and many more. With that being said you cannot put hip-hop in a box.
Rivera, O’Reilly and other conservative media figures who seem intensely ignore police brutality and isolating racist beliefs from the brutal, deadly acts they often engender.
Lamar fired back at Fox News and other conservative critics of hip-hop today in a new, brief interview with TMZ. Referring directly to his song “Alright”. “How can you take a song that’s about hope and turn it into hatred. The overall message is we’re gonna be alright.” Kendrick slammed Rivera for “diluting the real problem, which is the senseless acts, of killings, of these young boys out here…it’s reality. This is my world.”
Lamar spoke directly to his choreographed BET performance, asserting “Me being on the cop car, that’s a performance piece after these senseless acts.”
