Kendrick Lamar Says Rapping About ‘Molly’ is Watering Down Hip Hop

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

Hip Hop has clearly changed a lot of over the years, and nowadays the genre seems to be influenced by trends and lacks the originality it once had. More so than anything else, most of today’s most popular rappers have decided to forgo rapping about real issues and instead rap about material things and cause controversy with their insensitive lyrics. The new shift in the genre has caused rappers to lose multimillion dollar endorsement deals and even become targets for boycotts and petitions. There also seems to be a surge in referencing popular drugs and rapping about them as if taking them is cool, and this in itself has caused many to question if Hip Hop has gone too far. “Molly” is an example of a popular drug that has become a staple subject in today’s most recent rap lyrics. And according to rapper Kendrick Lamar, it really shouldn’t be considering that he feels it waters down Hip Hop. Kendrick tells Sway of MTV News when asked why he flashed the words “Death to Molly” at the end of his “B*tch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” video:

“You know, I like trends. In high school, we had the button ups. You know, Jay-Z did that. Cool trend. The jerseys, cool trend. Air Forces. And sometimes, you have the trends that’s not that cool. You may have certain artists portraying these trends and don’t really have that lifestyle and then it gives off the wrong thing. And it become kind of corny after a while. It’s really about keeping Hip Hop original and pushing away the corniness if anything.”

 

He also explains why he feels the constant rapping about Molly waters the culture down:

“That’s one of those things that waters it down when everybody constantly keep using this term or this phrase…putting it in lyrics. It waters it down. It waters the culture down. It’s really just time to move on.”

 

Check out the clip below: