How Much A Dollar Cost By Kendrick Lamar

The poem titled “So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans” written by Jimmy Baca describes how Americans are blaming Mexicans for taking all of their jobs rather than focusing on real world problems. Baca further goes on to describe poverty and general hard ships that the majority of Americans go through. However, as Baca indicates, the leaders of America continue to deny the more pertinent problems and concentrate on lesser ones. Baca beautifully points out many varying points in his poem by using different metaphors to exemplify his meaning. Three particular metaphors Baca uses that empower the poem are when he describes the asthmatic leader, when he describes money, and when he addresses the true problem America needs to be solving.

This song can relate to most of us. “For What It’s Worth” deals with more than one problem. It talks about many problems that are occurring and need to stop. This song is written on a broad spectrum to cover everything that is happening during this time. “For What It’s Worth” represents the late sixties, the opposition of the Vietnam War, and many riots that are going on. People did not accept others free thinking and right to be different; that led to many of the riots and civil right concerns. Equality is a right to battle for but not violently.

The lyrics of a song often have no substance and a clear example would be any Britney Spears song. The lyrics of “All Falls Down” are very deep. They talk about the ideal situation in life; We should go to school, get a good job and make money to buy what we want. The lyrics then ask, what if this doesn’t happen? This is prevalent in the first verse. “She has no idea what she doing in college. That major that she majoring, it don’t make no money.” The song questions these everyday values because we focus so much on these things, we don’t realize there are more important things in life such as life itself. Even Kanye admits that he spent money at Jacob’s Jewellery store before he thought about a house. “I went to Jacob with

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.

There are a couple topics to point out that this song portrays. I recognize two of them to be patriotism and thankfulness. I think that being thankful and loving the country you live in are the real pleasures in life. By saying “There’s no dollar sign on a peace of mind, this I’ve come to know” Zac Brown is explaining that money cannot buy you happiness. When he says “I thank god for my life, And

The songs with lyrics that required extensive analysis and introspection on my part. They held more than just confusing banter, they carried the depths of despair or altitudes of happiness the lyricist was experiencing. Like “I’ll tell you just how much a dollar cost/The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss” from Kendrick Lamar’s How much a dollar cost. After months of analyzing what Lamar was trying to express in this lyric I wondered if a dollar goes toward drugs or overly flashy material goods, is it really worth anything? I understood that Lamar felt as if his greed over money was causing him to lose touch with what was right. Which ultimately caused me to realize every dollar I lusted for meant nothing if I invested them in the wrong

The subject of God is rarely talked about in modern society compared to traditional times because like in Kanye West’s song, Jesus Walks, “ If I talk about God my record won’t get played.” The unknown in society is scary to people which connects to the denial that God exists. As well as, the continuation of the inner human struggles. It is hard to look down at the world, and believe there is a God with all the evil in the world. In contrast, Kanye West declares that people are constantly at war with their environment, and believes the root of all conflict lies internally. A rap song that talks about God but has references to terrorism and racism which are both conflicts that this modern society deals with. The four-minute music video is a collection of stories of reprehensible characters; crafted into a modern biblical visual to signify the inner and outer conflicts of mankind.

Our history records many events that took place, whether they were times of plenty or times of famine. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” dealt with the Great Depression of 1929. This song became the anthem for this time period because of its description of the calamity that would strike the United States. It was an outcry of what was to come; the stock market would crash and the economy would fail. The dreams that the “Roaring Twenties” had promised were no longer in sight but the fear and disillusionment of the thirties became a reality.

It’s about a son who asks for his inheritance early, leaves his home, and wastes all his money on meaningless, sinful things. When he has nothing left and nowhere to sleep he decides to go back to his house to live, and to the son’s surprise, his father graciously accepts him. This song has definitely left its mark artistically, and it’s because of religion and the bible that it did. Keith took a whole parable from the bible and turned it into a song, which was very unique. Even though it is something that has been done in old hymns, it is uncommon to see new Christian songs that come straight from the bible.

Kendrick Lamar took the music industry by storm last year after his release of his sophomore album To Pimp A Butterfly. Immediately, the album quickly became critically acclaimed and resulted in multiple awards such as winning four grammys this past winter. The album goes deep into Kendrick’s personal struggles as new found celebrity, while also touching on subjects surrounding the black community. For this paper I took a look at the standout song off the album Institutionalized, that deals with the internal struggle people go through in life because of the barriers of thinking they are imprisoned to in their lives. Along with this, the song also has elements that tie

Intro: Kendrick had hard times and good times in his life. Also this biography is going to show you how his life was. Another thing is will show you how he changed the world and the rappers he rapped with.

“Barter” by Sara Teasdale is a poem about exchanging items of value for items of want or need. The author begins the first as well as the second stanza by telling us “Life has loveliness to sell” repeating this two times makes sure we realize the value of the life we have. “Music like a curve of gold,” Listing items that have great value to her in both stanzas brings the value to reality as we continue to read. After two stanzas, she tells us “Spend all you have for loveliness” to let us know that spending the very items we treasure is what we need to do. She continues to explain “For one white singing hour of peace” is worth everything if it is what you need. The poem ends by telling us “Give all you have been, or could be.” Reminding us

He does so in several ways. The first, is that hip-hop fans immediately recognize the name “Kendrick Lamar” due to his major influence on rap over the last decade, so just by putting his name on the song, he has already established credibility withhis audience. There is also a great deal of ethos used in the song itself. This song is written from Lamar’s perspective while he’s having a conversation with another man. Since the song is written from the perspective of Kendrick Lamar, the audience gets to hear all of his inner thoughts and feelings. This helps Lamar establish even more credibility with his audience,because not only is his name on the song, but the audience experiences everything from Kendrick’s own perspective, making the message of the song seem more heart-felt. In otherwords, since Kendrick is speaking from his own perspective, the audience is led to think thatLamar truly believes the message he is delivering, and therefore dismisses any speculation that Lamar either didn’t write his own lyrics or doesn’t believe in the purpose and message of the song. Establishing credibility with the audience was crucial because it helped to enhance the overall message as well as strengthen the other rhetorical appeals used throughout the song.Kendrick Lamar has been notorious for being very open about his religion, and that aspect of his life shines bright in the lyrics of “How Much a Dollar Cost.”

five-hundred dollars? To some, five-hundred United States dollars might seem petty; a mere drop in a vast bucket of wealth. One might never know that it was gone amongst their grand fortune. To others, five-hundred dollars might be a fortune, one which they constantly prayed to their gods for, but never believed it would ever come to be.

An impoverished, single mother with three children has to work two or three jobs in order to barely make ends meet and feed her children. Every day of her life, she is forced to worry constantly about every dollar she spends; her discretionary income is non-existent. Despite the financial struggles that she and her family go through, every year, by April 15, she is filing her income and property taxes with the Internal Revenue Service. On Sundays, the mother drives herself and her children in her ten-year-old car to the church they attend: an enormous place of worship whose land stretches several acres. The pastor preaches a sermon urging churchgoers not to be greedy and materialistic; however, when the service is over, he walks out to his brand new SUV and drives home to his three-story house.