African American Monologue

In Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry” Kendrick is expressing his thoughts and emotions on the way America is treating African Americans today. However, along with expressing his thoughts on the injustice acts against African Americans, Kendrick also talks about his own hypocrisy as an individual. Through Kendrick’s thoughts he uses symbolic language that reference to important moments of African culture. By choosing symbols that correspond to iconic moments of African descent Kendrick is using parts of America’s failures as a country, such as slavery. Kendrick also uses physical attributes as well as stereotypes of himself in order to provide a reason of hatred of America on African Americans.

    In the first couple lines of the song, "I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black, my stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch.” These lines

Similarly in 1992, rapper Tupac Shakur released the song “Keep your Head Up” addressing the issues of colorism and sexism within the black community while attaching his own version onto the meaning of the African American proverb. Tupac’s interpretation emphasized the value of dark skin and quotes “Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice, I say the darker the flesh, the deeper the roots.” Tupac calls for a deeper understanding of this saying namely that being darker skinned means having a closer association with the African American heritage. As the son of Billy Garland and Afeni Shakur, members of “The Black Panthers”, the ideologies of the “Black Power” and “Black is Beautiful” movements were part of his upbringing, thus, the

“With 'The Blacker the Berry,' Kendrick spends most of the track rebelling against those who he feels are intent on marginalizing and oppressing black people. (4 Powerful Kendrick Lamar songs that spoke to Black America, n.d.)

The day had arrived. Feelings of excitement and dread rolled around in her stomach at the thought of seeing her friends and family again. She remembered the feelings of helplessness at watching her mother speak to Dr. Faas.

This week’s lecture notes, group discussions, and readings really resonate with me in all aspects. By reflecting on my childhood experiences in early 1980s in the United States of America, where I experienced discrimination from my fellow African American classmates, who believed that they have no association with Africa as a result, treated me very gravely through their verbal and physical abuse. I assumed their beliefs generated from the Eurocentric idea and colonization whereby assimilated and acculturated these African slaves into the European culture. Inevitably, the result generated denouncing any relationship with Africa or its people. At the same time they considered them a minority within their social existences and viewed as second-class citizens in the country they considered their own.

From it's inception, rap indured a lot of hostility from listeners--many, but not all, White--who found the music too harsh, monotonous, and lacking in traditional melodic values. However, millions of others--often, though not always, young African-Americans from underprivileged inner city backgrounds--found and immediate connection with the style. Here was poetry of the

The beginning of the song in Verse 1 starts with “ Black boy, black boy, we ain't gonna lie to you Black boy, black boy, we don't like the sight of you” The first verse immediately sends out a negative response to the audience because of how Eminem talks about black men. In

Since hip-hop was first introduced, there has been a rise in inequality and racial tensions, which has resulted in more segregated schools and neighborhoods, more discrimination and more violence than ever before. As a white artist, Watsky added his own perspective on this zeitgeist with his song “Color Lines (feat. Catch Wreck).” Within his song, Watsky’s raps highlight the white person’s role in the formation of this society, with lyrics such as “lynch trees have the same white limbs/ check out my arms, I look just like him.” While with another verse, Catch Wreck responds with lyrics such as “let’s you and I get one thing straight/ the game never been equal, ain’t no food on my plate/ I gave birth to this and you just took it and co-opted it and profited/ and packed it and wouldn’t give me half of it.” This back and forth between Catch Wreck and Watsky not only illustrates the divide in society and the growing racial tensions that has been accumulating for decades, but it also adds in the style from the roots of hip-hop, known as the dozens. The dozens are a style of rapping in which one which one verbally duels with another. This duel is clearly shown when Catch Wreck says, “All you gotta do is get past the guilt/ we ain’t living in a house that master built/ if you understand that, tell your people what you know/ because one of ‘em got enough money to pay back what you owe” and Watsky

Oh when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place In the great life line of the Christian West; And in the Black Land disinherited, Robbed in the ancient country of its birth, My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead, For this my race that has no home on earth.

This last line is what he has been building up to and it changes the meaning of the song. It’s not about black oppression by the White but gang members who kill their own. And if they want white people to treat them differently they have to

Recently, in the United States, there have been more and more racially charged incidents, such as the Ferguson riots, the University of Missouri protests, etc. These two different types of events are compared to the two different ideologies of non-violent and violent protests. Examples of people who believed in each of these ideologies are Martin Luther King Jr. who used non-violent protest and Malcolm X who used violent protests. Kendrick Lamar who has had song that are on both sides of the spectrum from his song “I” which is more like Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent beliefs to “The Blacker the Berry” which is more like Malcolm X’s thinking of self-hatred. In light of many of these issues along with the fact that racism is still an issue, Kendrick Lamar released his critically acclaimed song “The Blacker the Berry” in February 2015. This racially-charged song celebrates Kendrick’s African American heritage, but also has an underlying theme of racialized self hatred. The song also discusses the ideas of racism, hatred, and hypocrisy throughout the song. Some of the things Kendrick mentions in the song show how the beliefs and the people have not changed from the “three distinct periods of racial terror: antebellum slavery, Jim Crow, and the mass incarceration of Black people in the prison-industrial complex” (Lindsey 236). The song also shares its name with 1929 novel, The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurmond, which deals with similar issues of

“The Blacker the Berry” by Kendrick Lamar was released February 9th, 2015. This incredibly racially motivated song has created controversy throughout America because it tackles racism, hypocrisy, and hatred head on. Although Stephen Best argues that the past defines the present without question, and Hartman believes that many important African American stories have been silenced due to lack of evidence, Kendrick Lamar’s song “The Blacker the Berry” complicates and adds to their arguments by introducing a certain level of hypocrisy that forces the listener to understand a much more complicated moral position than is generally allowed, perhaps an inevitable one.

On February 15, 2016, Kendrick Lamar took the stage at the 2016 Grammy Awards show. Shackled in chains, he moved lethargically across the stage in a prison uniform. Words began to stream out of his mouth and I imagined the elephant that filled the room as an unapologetically black male made a statement to the world about African American oppression in the United States. Kendrick Lamar’s showcase included an intricate set that addressed social issues such as mass incarceration with song, “The Blacker the Berry”, while keeping hope towards better days with song “Alright”. The elaborate performance on February 15, 2016 would be a performance that will go down in history. An artist used his platform to discuss important issues in the United States to a diverse audience. With so much passion invested into the song, it was almost impossible to pick any other song besides “The Blacker the Berry”, as it discusses a wide range of issues within the United States, especially related to the black body.

The inspiration for this poem came from "Blacker the Berry" by Kendrick Lamar. The song speaks about the current state of the stereotypical black man or woman; the idea that they are repressed by institutionalized racism. The song also comments on the hypocrisy of this mindset. In the song Kendrick kills some one darker than him: