In Kendrick Lamar’s song PRIDE, Kendrick shows the listener that for him, pride is one of a number of sins he finds it difficult to avoid. He hopes that the lyrics in his songs will make amends from the mistakes he has made. To enhance his message, he uses the literary devices personification, rhyme and allusion. Personification is giving human traits to inanimate objects. For example, in the song, Kendrick says, “Love’s gonna get you killed. But pride is gonna be the death of you and you and me.” In other words, he says that love and pride is going to get both of you “killed”. The device is used because he is showing the audience that it is hard for him to avoid pride. The example contributes to the tone because it makes the tone reflective
Pride is a very relevant issue in almost everyone's lives. Only when a person is forced to face his pride can he begin to overcome it. Through the similar themes of her short stories, Flannery O'Connor attempts to make her characters realize their pride and overcome it.
The music of today has many songs in which there is a hidden meaning or stories behind the song. The song " Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharrell is a song with a hidden meaning given much to talk about , another song which has a similar meaning with previous song is "You Do Not Even Know It " by Rick Ross. The intent of this paper is to compare song to song through its similar meaning. Both of these songs have a very rough meaning. These songs are inspired in hidden personalities , lies , appearances, violation , drugs , sex, etc. In " Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharrell it talks about rape and sexual assault and all of these because of the use of alcohol and drugs. In "You Do Not Even Know It " by Rick Ross it also talks about how some people appearencess are not what they really are in
Kid cudi trying to argue about how difficult things are growing up with being Oppressed and growing up being black. Songs are one way of expressing feelings and emotion, many artist do this constantly in their music. To some it is why they make music. There are endless signs and verses that hint at many things such as problems, politics, living in racist era’s also places. I chose to focus on one main rapper and his music only.
In "Elegy for Jane", Theodore Roethke uses personification by describing the way that the leaves, the wren, the branches and twigs, the shade and the mold all moved in some way or another. He gave them
A North Carolina rapper named Jermaine Lamar Cole released his first mixtape called The Come up in May of 2007. The mixtape included a song that had a deep and thoughtful meaning, that song was called "Can 't Cry". In the song J Cole tells us about his life and how he goes through some tough times. He describes what is important to him now he is a grown man and what his goals are which he plans to achieve but gets sidetracked by the world we live in. In this essay I will first explain my definition of what the audiences are and then another sources and finally J Coles own definition from the song. J Cole effectively engages his audiences-men, black men and people who struggle with issues in life by revealing the stereotype that society has
Pride is a feeling that is derived from one’s own achievements and can sometimes get the best of us. This is the case with the last symbol, Brother, who let his pride get the best of him in the story. Brother was often embarrassed by having a crippled brother, so he taught Doodle to walk, row a boat, swim, and do many more activities that he thought would make him a “normal kid.” On the outside, it seemed as if he was genuinely helping Doodle, but he was letting his pride get the best of him and doing it for himself. Doodle often got fevers, looked stressed and weak, and was tired from being worked so hard, but nevertheless, in his blind pride, Brother pushes Doodle to keep working. This is visible when Brother states, “ I should have already admitted defeat, but my pride would not let me. . . It was too late to turn back, for we had wandered too far into a net of expectations and had left no crumbs behind.” ( Hurst 392). Pride can be overbearing and lead you to hurt the ones you love unintentionally without even noticing it. Therefore, by using Brother as a symbol, Hurst is expressing how pride can sometimes be a dangerous
His Grammy Award-winning best rap album To Pimp a Butterfly has a deep meaning starting with the theory of the album relating to Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”. The novel which is based on an innocent Black male, Tom Robinson, who is being indicted for committing a crime he never did. In the novel, the mockingbird is an allusion for Tom, a man who has never hurt anyone, yet is on trial and facing a death sentence. In Lamar’s politically fueled album, with response to racism, feminism, violence, and police brutality he created a pro-black record and sings it like a mockingbird would, a harmless album referring to the growth of a “butterfly”. However, he is the “butterfly” and the series of songs refer to his growth and transformation from the inner-city kid of Compton to the world renown artist he is today. He is able to do this through the evils he has experienced in this world. Lamar captured the American black population’s political and personal struggles by incorporating the economic, social, and political wrongdoings amongst the society. While writing the album To Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar pledged his dedication to bringing positivity to his listeners. Through his own assessment of systematic problems facing the black community, he takes his music’s impact seriously. Since music is a truly powerful force, and “one of the most arresting
In the charge of the light brigade the author uses personification to give the reader an understanding of what the soldiers had to go through. “Into the mouth of hell” is giving hell a human like characteristic meaning that the soldiers charged into hell/death. In o captain my captain the personification used is to describe what the sailors/people were going through. In line 4 of o captain my captain the vessel, or ship, is bleak because of all it has gone through, but it is daring because it continues on undaunted. Even though both authors used personification, they also differ in the use of
As Kendrick entered the stage shackled to his black comrades with a soulful saxophone playing in the background, it is obvious that the imagery of imprisonment was a commentary on incarceration in America and its similarities with slavery. By amplifying this modern twist on slavery, Kendrick provokes American viewers to reflect on the struggles that black Americans still go through today. At the start of his performance he goes on to rap “I’m African-American — I’m African” as if he was correcting himself. This isn’t surprising as black identity is hard to establish in a country that implicitly detests you, but explicitly fetishizes your culture. Stuart Hall discusses this in his text when he states, “’the primitive is a modern problem, a crisis in cultural identity’…the modernist construction of primitivism, the fetishistic recognition and disavowal of the primitive difference” (Hall 125). There is no wonder why Kendrick, like many African-Americans, finds comfort in placing his identity with the mother land rather than his true country of origin. How can the black multitude stand in solidarity with a country who will continuously praise black culture but refuse to recognize the black struggle? Kendrick Lamar then conjures imagery of Africa, where he danced and rapped in front of a raging bonfire, one of the most powerful imagery included in his entire performance. One can interpret
Accommodating for lost time can be a struggle, however education is the perfect key to allow a human a better diagram for survival in this world. Mortal Man is full of the reality that is blinded to society, because they have been confused by the experience of the struggle. Comparing two poems written within the song titled Mortal Man by the rap artist/ poet, Kendrick Lamar, provides an opportunity to engage in the Burkean Parlor; discussing the experience of the struggle and the proper way to survive through it. There is credibility of the struggle without mistakes of not knowing how to deal with the initial interaction; mistakes do not always lead to success; it is just an excuse to repeat history. Kendrick Lamar’s work provides evidence
Personification is presented by the author as the only explanation for the narrator’s consumption. “The Blue Estuaries” begins to stir the narrator’s own poems (line 24) until she bores down on the page once more, coming back into what is perceived by the reader as a much more clear state of mind. Then, the narrator claims to have “lost her doubts” for a moment (line 34). This was a turning point in the narrator’s tone- signalling a shift in her thoughts, and was a strikingly out of place claim- especially coming from somebody so preoccupied- making the reader wonder what she had thought about for a moment. The narrator then begins to read once more (Line
Currently in my CD player is a live recording of Jill Scott at a concert. Most of her songs have to do with life & love. Take for example the song “Gettin’ in the Way.” This song is about a woman trying to steal her man. She tells her to step back because the woman is “getting in the way of what I am feeling.” The sequence of events in this song is interesting. In the commentary she explains that this song is about principle. First she says to the woman to nicely step back. Then she says it in a harsher tone: “I know you don’t understand, but sister girl, you gotta get off my man.” Finally, she says “I am about to go off in your face: You better chill!” Clearly the conflict in the song is clear and can be easily related to the listeners’ lives.
Paul Zindel, author of The Pigman uses several examples of personification. One example of personification is “the door opened with a sigh”. This example shows that the person opening the door has a down mood and slowly opens the door. Another example of personification is “Right in the bright sunlight you can see the flashing
Webster defines pride as a “proud behavior or treatment; insolence; arrogance; distain” (Webster’s, 1939). Being proud is acceptable, even good, to a certain extent. Having pride in the way you look, your handwriting, or something you take seriously. People take pride in the little things that are personal and loved individually. Being a little prideful can lead to confidence; however people often mistake arrogance (an exaggerated pride) for confidence. Prideful people seek to prove their superiority in every aspect of their lives Roth provides the reader with a vivid illustration of this exaggerated pride. The initiates in her novel are supplied with multiple opportunities to st...
Hip Hop was, at its inception, a means for African Americans to tell their unaltered story. Towards the mid-’90s however, the genre began to be way more salse conscious than it ever was before. Artists, such as Nas for example, began to stray from their genuine and authentic selves to start making music about drugs, violence, and sex because that was what pushed their sales to the corporate level. This album was Lauryn Hill coming to re-educate the people in an attempt to bring them back to the root of Hip Hop. This poem focuses on many different themes, however this focuses on religion. In the poem Mystery of Iniquity the writer Lauryn Hill examines religion to illustrate racial discrimination, corrupting and crooked