“We are the culture, it’s going to always stay here and live forever.” In dedication to the West Coast and hip hop, these were the words Kendrick Lamar used to end his Song Of The Year acceptance speech at the 2025 GRAMMYS. His record-breaking hit “Not Like Us” sweeped the award show, making Lamar the undisputed champion of the night. While I agreed with his words on the surface, the context of the situation made some of the speech ring hollow.

The video of the speech includes a pan to California rap legend Dr. Dre, who Lamar has consistently praised and collaborated with his whole career, most recently performing with him at his Pop Out concert in July. Dre has a long history of accusations for domestic abuse and harassment towards women, most notably from journalist Dee Barnes and his ex-wife Michel’le. In fact, just two months after the Pop Out, he was sued $10 million by his former divorce therapist for what she called “unbearable harassment.”

Dre’s role in the concert has always reeked of hypocrisy to me. He introduced “Not Like Us,” a song that denounces pedophilia in a series of diss tracks towards Drake that call him out for his own predatory behavior with women. The irony of Dre, a known abuser, introducing the song, with Lamar right there to hype him up, made the message of the track feel insincere. Dre’s appearance at the GRAMMYS reopened that wound, making Lamar’s awards feel a little worse.

Lamar’s history with abusers goes back further. His 2022 album “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers,” featured multiple collaborations with Florida rapper Kodak Black, who has his own history of sexual assault cases, for which he was served a 10 year suspended sentence. There is certainly an argument to be made that Black’s appearances on the album fit into the record’s themes of forgiveness and overcoming trauma, but that viewpoint has never resonated with me. Black never showed remorse for his actions on the album, and has ignored the situation since then. His contributions to the project served as another moment of inconsistency in Lamar’s messages.

Lamar’s collaborations with figures such as Dre and Black muddle the legacy of a socially conscious body of work. There are very few artists, particularly at the level of fame and success of Lamar, that have been as outwardly spoken about issues of American society, including those of normalized domestic abuse. That’s why it’s hard to say that anything that Lamar does comes from a place of malicious intent. At the same time, I believe it’s critical that artists are held accountable, especially when those artists are trying to usher in and represent a culture.

Recently, thoughts on Lamar and his inconsistent messages reentered my head when he appeared on Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti’s newest album “Music.” Similar to Dre and Black, Carti has his own history of domestic abuse and allegations of being an absentee parent. Once again, there is an inconsistency between what Lamar preaches and who he collaborates with. This time around, though, it’s even more baffling. While with his earlier collaborations, such as his work with Black, there were perhaps artistic reasons, working with Carti appears to have no such motive; he’s doesn’t address the collaboration lyrically or integrate it into a greater thematic point. Frankly, it seems Lamar appeared on the album purely for commercial benefit, and in doing so, platformed an abuser.

When I first began to think about Lamar’s messages in the greater context of the industry, I was disappointed. How could an artist with such strong revolutionary messaging not be as outspoken towards other artist’s wrongs? Upon further reflection though, I’m not sure there was anything to be disappointed in.

Lamar represents an uncomfortable truth about the nature of celebrities and how we perceive them. What celebrities do and say is ultimately just presented to the outside world, and there is no way to know how they actually are. There was no reason for me to be disappointed in Lamar because there was no reason to think he truly believed everything he said. We can try to paint pictures of how artist’s would act in certain situations, perhaps trying to instill some of our own values onto them, but we will never know. Expecting perfect consistency in a celebrity’s messaging is a fool’s errand.

To return back to Lamar’s GRAMMYS speech, do we want the culture that Lamar spoke about to “live forever,” even if it includes these moments of hypocrisy and inconsistent messaging? To be honest, I’m not sure it matters. The culture of celebrities is the culture of the 1%. If there’s going to be a legitimate reliable change in what behavior is tolerated or platformed, it starts with us being the best version of ourselves and speaking out on what we believe in.