Gene Simmons sparks firestorm after calling Rap ‘Ghetto’ in Rock Hall rant
Gene Simmons has once again lit a fire under the music world—and this time, it’s not about makeup or power ballads. On a recent Legends N’ Leaders podcast, the KISS icon went full throttle on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Hip-Hop, and what he calls the dilution of Rock’s sacred soil.
Simmons—forever a provocateur—is irked that Hip-Hop heavyweights like Grandmaster Flash and Ice Cube sit alongside classic Rock gods in the Hall of Fame whilst bands like Iron Maiden are still waiting at the door. His gripe? Hip-hop doesn’t “speak his language”, and he flatly asserts it doesn’t belong in rock’s temple. “I don’t come from the ghetto”, he declared, twisting genre beyond style into identity.
Then comes the mic-drop: “I just wanna know when Led Zeppelin’s gonna be in the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame.”
That line—somewhere between irony and outrage—unpacks his beef with genre crossover and institutional revisionism.
Simmons didn’t stop at Hip-Hop. He dragged EDM into the fray too, calling it “easier” to make than Rock and shaking his head at the absence of Skrillex tribute bands. It’s classic Simmons: Contrarian, theatrical, unapologetically old-school.
Love him or roll your eyes, the moment taps into a broader cultural moment—one where definitions of musical legacy are contested, where Rock’s canonical halls are pressured to open doors to sounds the old guard never imagined. In a world where genre lines blur and playlists replace record bins, Simmons’ rant lands like a glitch in the matrix—loud, polarising, and undeniably Rock‘n’Roll a sound created by Black Americans.
