<\/p>\n
West Coast rap veteran Glasses Malone is turning heads\u2014and pointing fingers\u2014in his blistering new music video \u201cWanted,\u201d a visually charged indictment of what he sees as Hip-Hop\u2019s current cultural crisis.<\/p>\n
Framed as a fictional, high-stakes trial dubbed The State of Hip-Hop vs. The West Coast, the video captures the ongoing tension between mainstream rap\u2019s commercial machine and the raw, unfiltered expression that birthed the genre.<\/p>\n
In a move that\u2019s already sparking debate, Malone casts a Drake look-alike to take the stand in a mock courtroom, symbolizing what he views as the rap superstar\u2019s betrayal of the culture.<\/p>\n
In a standout moment from the video, it\u2019s dramatically announced that Drake\u2014portrayed by the look-alike\u2014will testify for the prosecution after \u201closing a rap battle,\u201d an unprecedented act within Hip-Hop\u2019s unwritten battle ethics.<\/p>\n
The faux Drake solemnly places his hand on the Bible, turns, and points an accusatory finger at Malone himself, cementing the moment as both metaphor and message.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a thinly veiled reference to the fallout from Kendrick Lamar\u2019s takedown anthem \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d and the real-world lawsuit<\/a> Drake filed against Universal Music Group in its aftermath.<\/p>\n Malone hasn\u2019t held back when speaking about the video\u2019s inspiration or its target. In a bold social media post debuting \u201cWanted,\u201d he directly compared Drake to Gunna\u2014a rapper who has faced criticism for alleged cooperation with law enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a time where Hip-Hop is really under scrutiny, maybe the most scrutiny it\u2019s ever been,\u201d the wordsmith recently told <\/a>AllHipHop<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t know if we\u2019re still creative or if we\u2019re even worthy of leading in the musical space right now. And then you have a rapper who people regard as part of the culture\u2014even though I\u2019ve disputed that\u2014suing another rapper for his creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd suing a label over that rapper\u2019s creativity, trying to get the label to censor it or pull it down completely. So he deserved to be painted as the d**khead that he is. Because that was his goal\u2014to censor Hip-Hop<\/a>. And I want to make sure everybody knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n To ground the record in its cultural roots, Malone brought together Jurassic 5 and LA Giantz\u2014two groups representing opposite ends of L.A.\u2019s rap spectrum.<\/p>\n \u201cWith this particular record, I\u2019m really capturing the essence of Hip-Hop,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cDuring the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, Lord Jamar felt like Kendrick Lamar wasn\u2019t a Los Angeles or Southern California street urban culture.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe felt like The Game was more a street urban culture and that inspired me to come together with a gangster rap group, the L.A. Giantz and Jurassic 5, a backpack group.\u201d<\/p>\n Glasses Malone\u2019s \u201cWanted\u201d isn\u2019t just a diss\u2014it\u2019s a statement, a line drawn in the sand, and a challenge to rap\u2019s elite to remember where the culture came from<\/a>.<\/p>\n See Glasses Malone\u2019s X post premiering the \u201cWanted\u201d music video below.<\/p>\n More from VIBE.com<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Vibe’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" West Coast rap veteran Glasses Malone is turning heads\u2014and pointing fingers\u2014in his blistering new music video \u201cWanted,\u201d a visually charged indictment of what he sees as Hip-Hop\u2019s current cultural crisis. Framed as a fictional, high-stakes trial dubbed The State of Hip-Hop vs. The West Coast, the video captures the ongoing tension between mainstream rap\u2019s commercial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1982643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[25844,356034,21944,37703,22851,356035,46171,356036],"class_list":["post-1982642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-drake","tag-glasses-malone","tag-hip-hop","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-music-video","tag-rap-battle","tag-universal-music-group","tag-west-coast-rap"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Glasses-Malone-Casts-Drake-Look-Alike-To-Testify-In-Wanted-Music.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1982642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1982643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1982642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1982642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1982642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}