Fox news anchor Geraldo Rivera targeted Kendrick Lamar on Monday night (June 29) while discussing hip-hop’s influence on the black youth. The reporter blasted Kendrick’s 2015 BET Awards performance, where the rapper delivered his newest single “Alright” atop a vandalized police car. Since the show, K. Dot spawned glowing headlines praising his opener, but Rivera and other conservative Fox News personalities picked at the performance’s statement on police brutality.
“Hip-hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years,” he ranted. “This is exactly the wrong message.” Rivera’s reach even went so far as to place the performance in light of the Charleston shooting, claiming that it equated cops to murderers, like Dylann Roof.
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On “Alright,” Kendrick drops bars on cops’ treatment of the black community and how it has affected the relationship. “We hate the po-po,” the Compton native raps. “Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho.”
Rivera, who is also a close friend of anti-immigration advocate, Donald Trump, called Kendrick’s set “counterproductive,” claiming it doesn’t recognize real issues in Black America and citing the centuries-old “black on black” crime rate argument.
Watch him speak his piece.