Kendrick Lamar slammed President Donald Trump in a new song, “The Heart Part 4,” calling out the administration on Russia and criticizing the Electoral College system, which led to Trump’s 2016 win.
“Donald Trump is a chump, know how we feel, punk / Tell ’em that God comin’ / And Russia need a replay button, y’all up to somethin'” he raps, referencing the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.
This week, US officials told CNN that the FBI has information that may indicate that associates of the President communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Lamar also blasted Trump’s Electoral College win and suggested that it’s “blasphemy” that Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton and still became president:
“Electorial votes look like memorial votes / But America’s truth ain’t ignorin’ the votes / It’s blasphemy, how many gon’ blast for me?”
The new song, which teased a possible April 7 release date for Lamar’s highly anticipated upcoming album, was released on the streaming services Tidal, Spotify and iTunes, and is a sequel to the Compton rapper’s “The Heart” Parts 1-3.
The song is also making waves in the hip-hop world as speculation swirled on social media over whether Lamar dissed Detroit rapper Big Sean in the track.
The Grammy-winning rapper has been a loyal supporter of former President Barack Obama and has spoken out on issues like mass incarceration and police brutality in his music for years.
The rapper’s Trump diss is part of a larger trend in hip-hop, where artists turned on Trump in 2016 after nearly three decades of idolizing his wealth and power in hundreds of lyrics.
While most rappers who addressed the new administration have been ardently opposed to Trump, several have expressed that there’s a silver lining to his presidency.
“(Trump) supports some of the racist ideals that this country does have and we’ve got to acknowledge that,” Common told CNN days prior to the 2016 election, “and I don’t think it’s a bad thing that this is brought out … because we need to know it exists and stop acting like it doesn’t and not be fooled because President Obama was in office.”
Brooklyn rapper Joey Badass agreed with Common and told CNN earlier this month that Trump “exposed the bigotry that still exists in this country even after a black president.”
And most recently, Florida rapper Rick Ross, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump, voiced a similar view in “Apple of My Eye” off his newest album, “Rather You Than Me,” where he raps, “I’m happy Donald Trump became the president/ Because we gotta destroy, before we elevate.”
