Kendrick Lamar Isn’t Focused On Donald Trump, Sees No Need To Diss President

After releasing the politically-charged “To Pimp a Butterfly” album in 2015, many Kendrick Lamar fans were surprised to discover the rapper’s latest album didn’t feature many of the same themes.

While the California rapper mentioned President Donald Trump on the song “The Heart Part 4” leading up to the release of his album “DAMN.,” the rest of the tracks on the new project only include one mention of the commander-in-chief. According to Lamar, this was done on purpose as he isn’t focusing on Trump anymore, he says.

Speaking with Zane Lowe during an Apple Music interview, the rapper said he wanted to focus more on “self-self evaluation” and not “what’s going on now.” He added, “We’re not focusing on [Trump]. What’s going on now — we’re focusing on self.”

According to the “DNA” rapper, people across the country are coming together now and his album reflects that. “You see real different nationalities and cultures are coming together and actually standing up for themselves, and I think that’s a pure reflection of this record prior.”

Kendrick told Lowe that while people originally thought they had no control after the election, they started to realize they did. “We say OK we can’t control — now we see we can control what’s going on out there. It was a whole ‘nother power that be so what we can do now is we can start coming together and figuring out our own problems and home solutions.”

While Kendrick only made one small reference to Trump on “DAMN.,” he did use a few songs to call out Fox News and Geraldo Rivera, who had previously criticized his music before. The rapper said he felt Fox News reporting on his song “Alright” was “clickbait” and said, “Anybody that know me know that you know I represent my people.”

On the song “DNA,” Kendrick raps, “Fox News wanna use my name for percentage.” The rapper then goes on to call out Rivera by name, calling him “ambitious.” Lamar previously told TMZ the overall message of his song “Alright” was, “We’re gonna be alright. It’s not the message of ‘I wanna kill people.’”