In the early 1990s, Clint Eastwood was asked to comment on the rising gangsta rap phenomenon and responded with strong disdain, calling it the worst musical genre and asserting he saw no value in it beyond its appeal to negative impulses. At 60+ years old, Eastwood was outside the genre's intended audience, with his own preferences rooted in the jazz, swing, and pop standards of his generation—artists like Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington.

When critics drew a parallel between gangsta rap's anti-authority messaging and the vigilante violence in Eastwood's acclaimed films, he pushed back by arguing that depicting law enforcement as society's villain oversimplifies systemic problems. He characterised the broader cultural tendency to blame external forces rather than acknowledge individual and collective responsibility, suggesting that society has a habit of seeking scapegoats regardless of whether they accurately explain complex issues.