Kendrick Lamar’s latest album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, faces a backlash for featuring Kodak Black, who is serving probation in a sexual assault case. In 2016, Kodak Black was accused of allegedly raping a teenage girl inside his hotel room in South Carolina.
Last year, Kodak pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was sentenced to 18 months of probation. “I apologize this happened, and I’m hopeful we can all move forward,” Kodak had said at the time.
Since the release of Kendrick Lamar’s new album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers has been in the news for all wrong reasons.
“I think that we’ve entered this annoying trend of ‘conscious’ rappers/artists thinking they are doing something enlightening and/or edgy by attempting to redeem and/or reimagine problematic/toxic individuals in society. In a series of tweets, Kendrick Lamar sadly chose Kodak Black on purpose,” journalist Ernest Owens wrote on Twitter.
Fans, too, criticized Lamar for featuring Kodak.
“I really love Kendrick Lamar’s album! And that being said, I hate the rapist is featured all over it. I expected better on that front. Like seriously, Kodak is not that damn good for y’all to be ignoring the rape conviction idc,” a fan tweeted.
