Rather going out here and doing murder myself, I want to express myself in a positive light, the same way other artists are.
This is our music, this is us expressing ourselves. Hip-hop is not the problem, our reality is the problem. Me being on a cop car, that's a performance piece after these senseless acts. I think for the most part it's avoiding the truth, it's reality, this is my world, this is what I talk about in my music and you can't dilute that. The problem isn't me standing on the cop car, I think his attempt is deleting the real problem, which is the senseless acts of killing these young boys out here. This sort of argument is nothing new, and it's embedded in a misconstrued perception of what hip-hop represents, which Lamar highlighted in his apt and well-articulated response to Rivera's comments: How could you take a song that's about hope and turn it into hatred? The message is 'we gon' be alright' it's not the message of 'I wanna kill people.' Rivera found one of the lyrics in the song, "And we hate po-po/ Wanna kill us dead in the street, fo sho," particularly problematic. Subsequently, Geraldo Rivera appeared on Fox News and lambasted Lamar for the performance, stating, This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years. In response, the activists began chanting a portion of what has debatably become the most popular track on Lamar's album, "Alright." Moreover, a week ago, activists attending a Black Lives Matter conference at Cleveland State University became upset after police removed an allegedly intoxicated 14-year-old from a bus. As they attempted to block the squad car holding the teen from leaving the area, an officer pepper sprayed the crowd. To Pimp a Butterfly has been a massive success and widely applauded, with the Guardian calling it, "the album hip-hop had been waiting for." It's intelligent, articulate and pertinent, so much so teachers are using it to discuss race with their students. And it's already having an observable impact. Like Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke in the 60s, Kendrick Lamar has tapped into a deep-seated dissatisfaction with the status quo in American society. I had that track way before that, from the beginning to the end, and the incident just snapped it for me. It's already implanted in your brain to come out your mouth as soon as you've seen it on the TV. It's already in your blood because I am Trayvon Martin, you know. "Blacker The Berry," arguably the most powerful and emotive track, was written in direct response to the death of Trayvon Martin.Īs Lamar recently explained: These are issues that if you come from that environment it's inevitable to speak on. Lamar's album is a timely meditation on the convoluted emotions and events surrounding this movement. The high profile deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray, together with others, have incited palpable discontentment across the country.
The US has certainly made some progress in establishing a more equitable society, but obviously still has a way to go.Īmerica is currently embroiled in what some have characterized as a new civil rights movement, with #BlackLivesMatter as its rallying cry. It's very telling the album deals with many of the same themes as other notable protest songs written by the artists mentioned above, among others, yet arrived decades after those were composed. His most recent album, To Pimp A Butterfly, is a politically-charged response to the racism, violence and police brutality that continues to plague society. Today, Kendrick Lamar is continuing the tradition. The beauty of musical protest is it's not confined to any single genre. Many musicians, from Creedence Clearwater Revival and Neil Young to Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield to N.W.A and Rage Against The Machine, would follow in their footsteps.
Dylan and Cooke were hardly the first to write protest songs, and they certainly wouldn't be the last.
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