Kendrick Lamar has responded to the Fox News pundits who claimed a recent performance of his incited violence and hatred.
Lamar’s live version of ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ single ‘Alright’ at the BET Awards on Sunday (June 28) saw him perform the song while standing on top of a vandalised police car. This did not impress the hosts of Fox News show The Five who, when discussing the awards, criticised Lamar and his lyrics.
Citing the stage set up and the ‘Alright’ lyric that the police “wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho”, host Geraldo Rivera said: “This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years.”
TMZ caught up with Lamar as he arrived at LAX Arport yesterday (July 2) and asked him about the coverage. He replied by asking: “How can you take a song that’s about hope and turn it into hatred?” Before saying: “The message, the overall message, is we gonna be all right. It’s not the message, we gonna kill people.”
“This is our music,” he went on to say. “This is us expressing ourselves. Rather [than] going out here and doing the murders myself, I want to express myself in a positive light the same way other artists are doing. Not going out in the streets, go in the booth and talking about the situation and hoping these kids can find some type of influence on it in a positive manner. Coming from these streets and coming from these neighborhoods, we’re taking our talents and putting ’em inside the studio.”
GettyMeanwhile, Kendrick Lamar has spoken about the roots behind ‘King Kunta in a video interview with NME. Watch here.
The rapper said: “I always stand in the root of where I’m from.” Discussing the track’s creation, Lamar name checked various sources of inspiration. First explaining that he was “paying homage” to “the creator”, fellow Compton rapper Mausberg – who was shot in 2000, and his DJ Quik produced track ‘Get Nekkid.’
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“Suga Free played a big part in my community coming up, in Compton,” Lamar continued. “I’m sure he studied James Brown to get that cadence, just the way I studied James Brown to hear it in both of them.”
Describing the track as a whole, Lamar explained that it was, “the story of struggle and standing up for what you believe in. No matter how many barriers you gotta break down, no matter how many escape routes you gotta run to tell the truth. That’s what I think we all can relate to.”
“Just being the most confident in the things that I wrote and the ideas that I have,” he continued. “Going back to the essence of being a true lyricist at heart.”