Alright By Kendrick Lamar

If I stay, which is an outstanding novel written by Gayle Forman, was published in 2009 and is an emotionally gripping story. The most interesting part of the novel starts with Mia’s life after the accident. The readers also learn about her life before the tragedy with the help of plentiful flashbacks. She recalls her colorful and vibrant family members so vividly that they could easily step off the page and break the hearts of the readers. Furthermore, her remembrances also highlight her passion for music and romance with her boyfriend. Moreover, the readers will find the entire novel very interesting and inspiring and will also find the climax of the novel very satisfying. The story revolves around seventeen year old Mia, who finds herself dealing with the aftermath of a terrible car accident which killed her entire family. During the coma, Mia goes through an out-of-the-body experience and observes all her friends and family that gather at the hospital. The memory of Mia flashes before her and she debates about whether or not she should wake up and face the grief of losing her family or, if she should die. Before summarizing the story, it is pertinent that the main characters of the story should be discussed briefly.

Music is a creative art form that allows the artist to construct something that expresses a purpose. It evolves over time and changes as the world changes, taking on many different motivations behind the melody and lyrics. In today’s society, anger, oppression, racism, and negative opinions rule the media and popular culture. I believe that African Americans need to show their self worth and not let white people hold them back. With the music in white culture often mocking African American culture and portraying negative stereotypes, African Americans have to find ways to gain respect. In acknowledgement of the negative portrayal of their culture, African Americans respond by creating songs and videos that express their pride in their culture and heritage, react to white oppression, and communicate their independence.

Millions of people in the world listen to music for all different reasons. Most people all over the world listen to different genres of music in order to relax, but not too many people pay attention to the actual lyrics of a song. If you listen to the lyrics of a song you will realize that many songs have important messages or themes to them. An example of this is the lyrics of the song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur. If you listen to this song, you will realize that Tupac raps about not only the problems that African Americans face from society, but also the struggles that poor people in society have to endure and overcome. Many

The song’s overall message is to emphasize the absurdity of belief that African-American people are predisposed to a criminal way of life due to their race, or, in other words - because of their DNA. The second line of the song goes “Loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA” (Lamar), where loyalty means being loyal to the African-American community, and royalty stays for the proud of being a representative of this community. In the next lines, Kendrick states that he is predisposed to violence and evil as they are encoded in his DNA: “Realness, I just kill shit ’cause it's in my DNA; I got dark, I got evil, that rot inside my DNA” (Lamar). Once again, it is needed to understand that these words are used with double meaning. Saying so, Lamar depicts the

Today many people feel compelled to buy anything or everything with an expensive price tag. This includes Expensive designer clothes, latest gadgets, expensive vehicles and many other similar things. This form of consumerism has embedded itself in today’s society; where it's encouraged to invest in such materialistic possessions. Kanye West is an African-American rapper, producer, and entrepreneur, who articulates his struggle with consumerism and the struggle for those around him in his song “All Falls Down.” West, utilizes puns, rhyme, and juxtaposition to highlight the issues surrounding materialism that can be interpreted differently by different listeners such as African Americans and White Americans.

Kendrick Lamar’s third studio album, “To Pimp a Butterfly,” sheds light on the struggle of achieving rich and fame and the trials that come with. Rolling Stone and Billboard praised the album awarding it the best album of 2015. The album depicts the difficulties of fame by putting the trials and tribulations on display; the inability for those to adjust to their new lifestyle and the potential temptations that creep in. “To Pimp a Butterfly” has been both a divisive and uniting factor in its emergence in popular culture.

A common theme among many scholars is modern poetry lacks poetic merit. The modern version of poetry is more often than not, found as music and more specifically as lyrics opposed to stanzas. “Traditional” poetry is known for its poetic merit; however, modern poetry, music, also has elements that can be found in traditional poetry. Poetic merit usually refers to the use of numerous poetic elements: figurative language, imagery, symbolism, allusions, etc. Though scholars may regard music as lacking in poetic merit, the song “Glory” by John Legend and Common proves otherwise through its use of symbolism, alliteration, and allusions to put forth its emotional lyrics that depict the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement.

analysis and inspiration. Something that jumps out during this video that needs analyzing is the racial stereotypes. In the unit two reading, it talks about a problem within hip-hop music videos. The videos supposedly put out bad messages and “perpetuate” stereotypes upon themselves. Fans of hip-hop say that “hip-hop music is a reflection of the realities of life in much of black America” (Caliendo 35). Although this music video has characteristics of stereotypes, they don’t seem offensive. Big Sean, Kanye West, and John

Kendrick Lamar’s song “Alright” talks about race and how African Americans are being targeted and profiled. The song tells about the gun violence and police brutality that is effecting our community, “And we hate Popo, wanna kill us dead in the street for sure, n…” (Line 35). This quote out of his song is significant because in the world we live in someone gets killed every day for the color of their skin color or a profile that someone made off assumptions. As the song goes he tell about how African Americans were discriminated. “When you know, we been hurt, been down before, n… / When our pride was low, lookin' at the world like, "where do we go, n…?”’ (Line 33-34). Throughout the years African Americans are looked down on to the point where they do not know what their purpose is. For some, living in a world where people do not want them there hurts the pride of people.

Independently, Shakur’s lyrics suggest the inequalities he has experienced throughout his life and of his race in general. In the first verse, Shakur expresses his upbringing without a father and the struggles with the racial tension in his neighborhood. He implies that he has been pushed into a world of violence and crime because of his low socioeconomic status. He states that peace can only be attained if the African Americans are offered a place in the society. The second verse focuses upon the broader oppression of the black body where he addresses the police violence and inequalities of the system. His lyric analyzes the violence in the streets and the fear of police officers that are willing to shoot him because he appears threatening. Finally, the third verse expresses that he is still waiting on things to change, yet the answer is not present. The greater meaning to his

In “Alright” Kendrick Lamar is speaking to the public about police brutality, or is he sending a deeper message to the people of minority. Kendrick Lamar released the song titled “Alright” in 2015. Upon release the song instantly blew up. It 's catchy and even though people got tongue tied trying to recite the song everyone knew the hook of the song which stated “We gon be alright do you hear me do you feel me we gon be alright.” I wonder did anyone catch the poetic verses Kendrick was saying before the hook. By simply watching the video you instantly think oh police brutality but I recieved a deeper message. I believe Kendrick wanted the song to inform the public about the brutality that seemed to be continuous at the time; and offer a bit of hope to those who didn’t feel there was any. That’s why the song was so famous, Kendrick performed this song on numerous award shows and talk shows because the people needed to hear it. Though some believe the song is in protest against cops or sending a bad message others believe it is an anthem for african americans.

Black single mothers have overall negative stereotypes linked to them, their children, and their financial situation. Single black mothers are getting labeled as Gold diggers, lazy, con-artist, non-supportive, emotionally unstable, and uneducated. To make their reputation even worse most of the songs in the Hip Hop community make hypocritical songs that generalize all single black mothers based on their particular experience. Hip Hop narratives such as “Faith” by Kendrick lamar and “Baby Mama” by Fantaisa, challenges the race stereotypes about co-parenting. Not all Hip Hop songs reinforce the negative stereotypes about single black mothers. Songs like “Faith” by Kendrick Lamar is a great song that represents the struggle single mothers go through.

Additionally, critics took note of Lamar's verse on the song "Control," by rapper Big Sean. Even though the track was written by another artist, Lamar's verse drew attention because of his challenge to several other popular names in the hip-hop world, including Drake, J. Cole and Big Sean himself. One interesting fact about Kendrick is he became an American rapper and songwriter. The good thing is that Kendrick faced the violence like a real mature kid. Not like those kinds of those kids who are under pressure quickly. So that’s mostly about Kendrick Lamar’s

On verse one, Kendrick is speaking about someone, which I will explain further, whom is mistreating him and his family, on how this person was filled with arrogance and even dared to chase a better life than what he ever had. He also rants on how he never needed him and he will never need him. Kendrick was extremely mad at this individual and the amount of pain in his voice, you can sense the hatred he carried inside him. He quotes, “The world don’t need you, don’t let them deceive you. Numbers lie too, f*ck your pride too, that’s for dedication. Thought money would change you. Made you more complacent. I f*ckin’ hate you, I hope you embrace it.” This is a message from Kendrick to K. dots actions, which he fights a difficult battle in his

Kendrick’s song expresses the continued struggle faced by African Americans in modern society. The first couple lines of his song truly display how he feels about the mistreatment of African Americans: