Post Malone addresses his controversial hip-hop comments and cultural appropriation in new video
“Who am I to tell you you should feel a certain way when listening to something?”
Post Malone was criticized across the internet this week, for comments made in a recent interview that seemed to dismiss the emotional range of hip-hop, the genre of music he creates. "If you're looking for lyrics, if you're looking to cry, if you're looking to think about life, don't listen to hip-hop," he said, adding that "whenever I want to sit down and have a nice cry, I'll listen to some Bob Dylan."
On Thursday morning, the "rockstar" rapper released a new video statement on Twitter addressing the controversy. He says the comments were made during "a beer-tasting interview," implying that alcohol was a factor in his statements. Despite making what appears to be an overwhelming mischaracterization of hip-hop in the original interview, Malone insists that he was speaking only about his personal tastes. "Who am I to tell you you should feel a certain way when listening to something," he says. "No matter how hard you are, no matter where you're from, you're going to have a time where you sit back and reflect on your life and listen to what you wanna listen to. For me, that's Bob Dylan."
He dismisses accusations of cultural appropriation, which have long dogged his career, but were amplified when the interview was released. "A lot of people [are] saying I don't appreciate hip-hop or I'm taking advantage of hip-hop. My last hip-hop album was fuckin' hip-hop, my next hip-hop album is fuckin' hip-hop. I love hip-hop, I make hip-hop. I wanna take this genre and stretch it so far that people who may not listen to it, listen to it."
Malone goes on to double down on another contentious comment in the interview, when he claimed that "there's not a lot of people talking about real shit" in hip-hop. "What I was trying to say is that a lot of people, except for a handful of artists, are saying the same shit, they're not saying anything super meaningful.
"I'm 22 years old," he says. "I have not had all the life experience in the world to talk about the most meaningful shit. I just think about what I have gone through, what's going on in my life, and what I wanna sing about. Never once did I say I don't appreciate hip-hop. I’m just trying to keep living and make the music that I love.”
Post Malone's new album Beerbongs and Bentleys is out December 1.
Thumbnail photo by Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Universal Music