Kendrick Lamar throws political haymakers on America’s most revered stage

Kendrick Lamar is no stranger to the bright lights, nor to the critics that accompany them. Nearly a decade before commanding the stage at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans, the Compton-born MC made his mark with another politically charged performance. At the 2015 BET Awards, fresh off the success of his third studio album “To Pimp a Butterfly,” Lamar dispatched his hit “Alright” while standing on a vandalized police car, an American flag flying in the background. On air the following day, Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera slammed Lamar’s performance, ultimately claiming that “hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years.” Two years later, Lamar sampled the clip on “DNA,” the second track on “DAMN.” which went on to top the U.S. charts and made him the first hip-hop artist to win a Pulitzer Prize.