Kendrick Lamar is dismissing criticisms of his music and his recent BET Awards performance by some conservatives as the noise of fake controversy, and not the real message of his new hit song "Alright."

According to TMZ, Fox News host Geraldo Rivera instantly took Lamar, his music and hip hop in general, to task for what he insisted is its scrounge on the youth of America.

"This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years," he said of Lamar's tune, in which Lamar lays into police for strong-arm tactics in dealing with the youth of today, particularly minorities. "This is exactly the wrong message. Then to conflate what happened in the Charleston church in South Carolina with the tragic incidents involving excessive use of force by cops is to equate that racist killer with these cops. It's so wrong. It's so counterproductive."

Lamar's BET performance featured him rapping the tune standing on top of a graffiti-covered police vehicle. Still, Lamar insists the overall theme of the song is "we gonna be all right" and that violence is not the answer.

"I think his attempt is really diluting the real problem, which is the senseless acts of killing of these young boys out here," he said of Rivera's criticisms. "I think, for the most part, it's avoiding the truth."

Lamar later added some of the lyrics in the song reflect his reality and the world he comes from.

"Me being on the cop car, that's a performance piece after these senseless acts," he said. "Of course I'm going to be enraged about what's going on out here."

Lamar went on to explain much of the anger being expressed in the streets is real, but hints that the hope that things can and will be better remains.

"You can't take away our hope that things will be okay at the end of the day," he said. "Hip-hop is not the problem, our reality is the problem."