Kendrick Vs The World

Kendrick Duckworth Lamar, arguably one of the best rappers of our time. He was born June 17, 1987, in Compton, California. He’s twenty-eight years old, and will be turning twenty-nine in three months. His stage name used to be K-Dot until he noticed that that's not what he wants to be called for the rest of his career, so he changed his stage name to his birth name, Kendrick Lamar. After being inspired by Tupac and Dr. Dre’s song/ music video “California Love,” by the time sixteen years old, he had already released a mixtape.

You’re fuckin’ evil I want you to recognize that I’m a proud monkey. You vandalize my perception but can’t take style from me.” Kendrick is dictating the common notion of don’t judge a book by its cover. America, in Kendrick’s mind, sees the exterior characteristics of a person as the point of determining success in one’s life. Kendrick at the same time is showing how proud he is of his own looks because he knows it doesn’t really matter how one looks it is more about being able to turn your life around no matter what anybody thinks.

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

Cultural phenomenon, rapper Kendrick Lamar has embraced a growing minority centered culture in America through his album “To Pimp A butterfly” this album conveys themes of hardship for minorities and cultural uprising. One of the singles on this album “Alright” simply tells black audiences that with faith everything will be alright. He uses the Lyrics “Alls my life I has to fight, nigga .Alls my life I...Hard times like God. Bad trips like: ‘God!’ Nazareth, I 'm fucked up..Homie you fucked up..But if God got us then we gon ' be alright” These lyrics simply tell suppressed minorities that despite hardship there is hope within our communities. . Months prior to the release of Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” several attacks from white police officers happened in the black community. A common case in this uproar was the “Mike Brown case”. In this case a black man was shot dead after allegedly robbing a local gas station. Kendrick simply responded to these seemingly racial attacks with his album to “Pimp a Butterfly”. To pimp a butterfly simply means to use your influence to the best of its ability to make a meaningful impact. With tracks like “Alright” Kendrick Lamar does just that. The Primary themes and issues conveyed in this song are white supremacy, racism and black uprising

Think of a poet. Who came to mind? Was it Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Ralph Waldo Emerson? What about Eminem or Jay-Z? They are both poets too, but in a different way. They go by the title “rapper”, basically a synonym for poet, and Hip-Hop is their form of poetry is. Kevin Coval amusingly says that rap “dusted poetry off, took it out the closet, put Js on its feet, and told it to speak to the people, all the people,” and that hip-hop saved poetry from becoming “classical music,” meaning that rap prevented poetry from becoming an old, out-dated art form and renovated it for the next generation (20). Coval’s book, The BreakBeat Poets, says the creation of hip-hop music was by “latchkey kids in the crack era, left to their own devices to experiment wildly and make language and art new and meaningful,” and goes on to say its purpose is to, “move the crowd, relate to the crowd, and save the crowd,” and Kendrick Lamar does these things perfectly (18). Through the use of clever wordplay and rhyming skills mixed with great story telling, Kendrick is bringing rap music back to its “roots” while introducing a “style” of his own, which is why one can argue that Kendrick Lamar is the “savior” of the rap game and its listeners.

Inspired by James Baldwin’s 1963 classic The Fire Next Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me powerfully educates readers on what it means to be African American in the United States today. It is formatted as a letter to his son, Samori, at the age of fifteen. It’s intention being to help him through navigate the world as a young African American male. He does this through sharing personal experiences and analyzing current events, with regards to historical context. By communicating his ideas in this format, he is uniquely able to more broadly depict the concept of racism in America. Where both memoirs and textbooks fall short, Between the World and Me does not.

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.

On the other hand, some people are not as receptive to the criminal justice debate that Meek Mill’s sentencing has sparked. Rahman Hammond posted a Facebook post criticizing those who choose to blame the criminal justice system “for the choices of grown men” (Hammond). He believes that people are not holding Meek Mill accountable for his actions while he knew that he was on parole. Even though Meek Mill is not innocent in this situation as he violated New York law by riding a dirt bike, an unauthorized motor vehicle, his sentencing and the background for his case serves as a striking reminder of the harsh sentencing that black people face, no matter their wealth, notoriety, or popularity. Meek Mill is now 30 years old, yet he is still on parole for a crime he was convicted on when he was 19 years old. He spent over 10 years on parole not allowing him to practice any civil liberties. Even though the dirt bike charges were dismissed, the judge still sentenced him to two to four years in prison. People should be held responsible for their actions; however, the courts should also be held responsible for giving people unnecessarily harsh punishments compared to their white counterparts for crimes they have committed. Even though people say that Meek Mill is made an example of for black people, they also fail to realize the privilege that Meek Mill has a famous, wealthier black man. Black individuals who are typically exploited by the criminal justice do not have the finances to even hire a lawyer to properly defend their case. By examining Meek Mill’s case, individuals will hopefully understand the injustice that occurs within the black community and also understand what is at stake by ignoring or deflecting the concerns of a part of the population that essentially has no voice.

Along with this, it also talks about the increased isolation that ensued as a result and left both groups of people from rarely ever integrating with each other. This hypersegregation thus resulted in huge gap in resources, levels of crime, and price levels between predominantly white and black neighborhoods. The effect of this hypersegregation is constantly seen in Kendrick’s song as he describes growing up in a neighborhood full of crime, and few people working. However, through Kendrick’s verses the listener can see the internal struggles hypersegregation has on a human being living in the ghetto away from any other life different than his surrounding. This is not only seen internally in Kendrick as he deals with the struggle of getting exposed to a whole new environment and shaking away the tendencies of the old one. The effect is also is seen in his friends when he raps “But something' came over you once I took you to the fuckin' BET Awards, You looking' at artists' like the harvests, So many Rollies around you and you want all of them” (Source). His friends are experiencing two effects of hypersegregation, the first being that they are shocked to see a whole new world other than the poverty stricken neighborhood they always are around. The Second is that as a result of only operating in one segregated setting Kendrick’s friends

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.

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

Tesfaye met a musical producer named Jeremy Rose. Rose had an idea for a musical projection of R&B music that was dark and he called it "The Weeknd". Rose tried lending the idea to the musician Curtis Santiago but, after playing an instrumental to Tesfaye, whose freestyle led them to began making an album. Rose and Tesfaye came to an agreement that Tesfaye could keep the tracks as long as Rose received credit for them. In December of 2010, Tesfaye uploaded  the tracks to youtube to his unknown identity " The Weeknd".  Attention was drawn to the songs online and blogs posted by the rapper Drake grew interest to The Weeknd. March of 2011, House of Balloons as released consisting of nine tracks. Rose didn't receive any credit for the tracks.

In the final song of the project, “Mortal Man”, Kendrick conveys a similar message with a cynical tone. In the song, Lamar is seemingly questioning one of his friends, though the writing is purposefully unclear so the message could be broadened,

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.”

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: