Kendrick Lamar

In 2008 America's dream of racial equality felt possible. Barack Hussein Obama's presidential election victory marked an end to colour prejudice. Change had come to America.

Two weeks ago Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, was shot whilst attempting to evade the police. It followed analogous incidents involving black teenagers, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Recently, Obama conceded that America hasn’t gone far enough in shifting racial attitudes, begging the question: if America’s first black president can’t accelerate change then who can?

The Audacity of Hope

Compton-born, Kendrick Lamar tackles this quandary on his album, Pimp a Butterfly, the follow-up to his smash hit, good kid, m.A.A.d city. The past album, a verbose trawl through his early autobiography, poeticised the incidents that shaped him. This record, however, marks the chrysalis of Lamar from neighbourhood bawler to inspirational scholar. This personal evolution is the inspiration behind the album title: the caterpillar is Compton, a mad city that leaves men dead on their belly; the butterfly is creativity: the thoughts, ideas and talents that can take you out of there. The success of good kid’s street level reportage took Lamar out into the world, with this experience he has seen how the other half live, allowing him to question fame, consumerism and inequality.

A lot of people put hip-hop on trial for being amoral, egocentric and avaricious. The same charge can’t be levelled against Lamar. Take the single ‘u,’ a vicious self-examination of his flaws. In a fast, frenzied, stream of consciousness bawl he scoffs at his ‘voice of a generation’ tag, arguing there is little point in reaching a huge audience when he can’t stop his teenage sister from falling into pregnancy. Only on King Kunta does Lamar dabble in braggadocio, the swaggering boastfulness that typifies hip-hop, and even then the track provides a lesson in black American history; as Kunta Kinthe, a punished rebel slave, is used to symbolise Lamar's own strength and conviction. Perhaps the most dazzling lyricism on the album is ‘These Walls.’ Just as Jay Z’s 99 Problems used the word ‘bitch’ in different contexts, Lamar does the same with the word ‘walls.’ ‘Walls’ is a revenge tragedy about a character who takes vengeance on the man who killed his friend by sleeping with his girl. The song inhabits the vaginal walls of the woman, the internal walls of the speaker and the prison walls of the convict. If you look past the profanity, the track highlights a virtuosic grasp of language.

‘Blacker The Berry’ shows the young rapper’s manipulation of narrative, informing the listener early on that by the end of the track they will find him a hypocrite. Through the song he attacks the police’s racial profiling and bloodthirsty attacks on blacks – ‘the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.’ By the end though he admits that he too has betrayed his people by being involved in black on black shootings. Whether this is a frank admission to an event that happened in his childhood or him speaking in the guise of a hip-hop character, it does challenge the rap industry's paradoxical promotion of solidarity and violence.

Admittedly, the album isn’t as easy a listen as its predecessor. It takes time to appreciate the depth and dexterity at work. One track that does have immediacy is ‘i.’ ‘The track is the redemptive realisation of coming through the challenges of fame through finding solace in home. The sprawling funk guitar, propulsive drum beats and the refrain of ‘I love myself’ is the serotonin hit on an otherwise brooding album.

Things return to reflection though in the album's coda when a simulated interview is staged with dead rapper, 2Pac. Lamar cuts his hero's 90's interview answers and pastes them to make it appear like the two are in conversation. Hearing the two discuss art, enterprise and politics is a rejoinder to the accusation hip-hop is thoughtless bullshit. 

Ultimately, if you aren't a hip-hop fan and want your pre-conceptions challenged, then Lamar is your man; if you're a fan then you'll love his fresh take on old skool hip-hop.

Pimp a Butterfly is out in all good record shops now.