Geraldo Rivera Responds to Kendrick, Doubles Down on Rap Criticism

On his new album DAMN., Kendrick Lamar samples and calls out Geraldo Rivera several times. In 2015, Rivera said on Fox News, “This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years,” in reference to Kendrick’s BET Awards performance of “Alright,” which featured Kendrick performing on top of a vandalized police car. That segment was sampled on DAMN.’s opening two tracks “BLOOD.” and “DNA.” On the following song, “YAH.,” Kendrick raps, “Fox News wanna use my name for percentage,” and “Somebody tell Geraldo this nigga got some ambition.” Now, Rivera has responded to the tracks and backed up his claim, as Consequence of Sound notes. Watch the 18-minute video below.

At the beginning of the video, Rivera declares, “Aside from Drake, in my opinion, [Kendrick Lamar is] probably the best hip-hop artist out there today.” He later adds, however, “I didn’t particularly care for the way he mentioned me.” After quoting himself (and mistakenly claiming his remarks were made in 2016), he said:

I think too much of hip-hop, too much of rap in the last couple of decades has really portrayed the cops as the enemy, as the occupying army in the ghetto, in the inner city, in the urban centers. It’s an us against them where this very popular, powerful art form, this poetry, is being used to really set young people, young minorities—black and Latinos, principally—against the officers who are sworn to protect them.

He later added:

It seems to me that with Kendrick Lamar—and he’s the best of ’em, like I said. The others far more egregious, with them, indoctrinating young people with the message that the cops are the enemy, that there’s no good way to get ahead. It’s the worst role model. It’s the worst example. It’s the most negative possible message. And what’s the point of it? I mean, you sell records. I get that. You sell records. I get that this stuff is, you know, popular, but it avoids the central reality, just as Black Lives Matter avoids the central reality.

Now, in this building, I probably have a higher regard for Black Lives Matter than anybody else because I think there is a real issue of police violence. I think it’s a real issue. But again, I stress it pales in comparison to the ghetto civil war that’s being waged. It is undeniable that the biggest danger to a young black man in Chicago is another young black man. That is undeniable!

He continued, “I know that the real danger to real black men and real brown men now is that their role model will sing about cops being killers and the system being stacked and there’s no chance of advancement and all the rest of it.”

He also sang Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” and asked viewers to “remember Mavin Gaye, not the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac and all the rest.” And reaffirmed, “I have no beef with Kendrick Lamar, anyone else in the business, but if you don’t have a positive attitude, you’re dooming yourself to a life that you profess to despise.” 

Read “5 Takeaways From Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN.” on the Pitch, and check out our interview with featured artist Zacari. 

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