Rapper Kendrick Lamar has hit back at Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera after he was critical of Lamar's opening performance at the recently concluded BET awards last week.
Lamar kicked off the awards show with a searing live rendition of his latest single "Alright". The 28 year old belted out the song from atop a destroyed police car as a giant American flag waved in the background.
Following the show, hosts of FOX News' "The Five" Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Dana Perino along with Rivera criticized Lamar's performance. In the June 29 episode Rivera had this to say:
"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. And then to conflate what happened in the church in Charleston, 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. It gives exactly the wrong message."
Lamar quickly snapped back. In a statement made on TMZ Live, he accused Rivera of misinterpreting the message of "Alright" saying:
"How can you take a song that's about hope and turn it into hatred?" he said. "The message, the overall message [of 'Alright'], is, 'We gon' be alright.' It's not a message of 'I want to kill people.'"
Lamar says that he wants his music to portray the real problems facing America such as the recent string of excessive law enforcement activities that have resulted in the deaths of innocent black men:
"I think his attempt is really diluting the real problem, which is the senseless acts of killings of these young boys out here. And I think for the most part, it's avoiding the truth," the Grammy Award-winner said. "This is reality. This is my world. This is what I talk about in my music. You can't dilute that."
