Racism and slavery is a serious matter and gets twisted into different concepts. J Cole wrote and performed the song ‘Be Free’ to describe and show the emotional and physical pain African-Americans feel about it all. Throughout time there havehas been several forms of slavery, whether it’s psychological or physical. J Cole is not the only person to step up and speak on the matter, but his voice is heard around the world. In this spectacular song, Cole is most likely addressing African-Americans and people of all colors who want to change the world for the better of all colors. While performing live, Cole seemed saddened and hurt from deep down inside because he and only wants things to get better and for everyone to learn to love. Although he presents this song about being free, I believe J Cole is talking talks about police brutality and racism the majority of the time. During the song, there is a chorus in the back and at certain parts it says, “Eyewitnesses account from Dorian Johnson.” I believe Cole useshas this to add emotion and power to his song. Heand he also talks about what had …show more content…
Cole’s main chorus in this song is, “All we wanna do is take the chains off, All we wanna do is break the chains off, All we wanna do is be free,” which clearly demonstrates that there is slavery within. He wants to break the chains off and be free instead of feeling trapped and stuck in this almost absurd world, as he describes it. Finally, Cole brilliantly pulls the emotion out by saying, “That there ain't no gun they make that can kill my soul.” A person’s soul is one’s true self. It’s ultimately the spiritual embodiment of whom you really are. It contains everything that makes you, including your morals and
Cole uses a slang that is being used in this generation to help people understand the message being expressed in the lyrics. This slang is mostly understood by the younger generation. His music falls in the genre of hip-hop and rap. Cole also uses expletive language to emphasize certain parts of his song.
While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.
McBride’s idea of limitation is prominent during the time of slavery for African Americans, as these same limitations are present during the twenty first century. The power of limitations that African American Women faced during the time of slavery hindered their ability to gain freedom, as freedom for slaves was the ultimate American Dream. James McBride exemplifies this in the novel Song Yet Sung as the first character that we meet is Liz, whom happens to be African American Women. When McBride first introduced Liz to the audience, she was running away from her master as she was chasing the American dream known as freedom.
In the song “When Will We Be Paid for the Work We’ve Done?” by the Staple Singers, they use pop music and culture to spread their message. The song talks about how African Americans have done all this work for the white men but they don’t receive any repayment for it. The Staples Singers focus on many different aspects of African American history throughout the song. They used this song to reflect on African American history during the times of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. They also used the catchy tune to engage people and unite them by singing along in protest. The catchy tune that made the song easy to sing along irritated the officers that had to control the protests. This song was an easy way to express the thoughts of unequal
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
" From the deep and the near South the sons and daughters of newly freed African slaves wander into the city...isolated, cut off from memory...they arrive stunned with a song worth singing..their pockets lined with fresh hope, marked men and women seeking to scrape from the narrow..shaping the malleable parts of themselves into a new identity as a free man of definite and sincere worth.
The book, The Spirituals and the Blues, by James H. Cone, illustrates how the slave spirituals and the blues reflected the struggle for black survival under the harsh reality of slavery and segregation. The spirituals are historical songs which speak out about the rupture of black lives in a religious sense, telling us about people in a land of bondage, and what they did to stay united and somehow fight back. The blues are somewhat different from in the spirituals in that they depict the secular aspect of black life during times of oppression and the capacity to survive. James H. Cone’s portrayal of how the spirituals and the blues aided blacks through times of hardship and adversity has very few flaws and informs the reader greatly about the importance of music in the lives of African-Americans. The author aims to both examine the spirituals and blues as cultural expressions of black people and to reflect on both the theological and sociological implications of these songs.
Whereas, Wheatley who shares her “actual” experience of being kidnapped from her native lane. Although these two artists have similar view points, they interpret different concepts that separate the two. While listening to Redemption , Marley mentioned "But my hand was made strong, by the hand of the almighty, we forward in this generation, triumphantly" from those few quotes Marley obviously believes that through all the pain and agony of slaves, his generation will be able to create a difference. Next, “Old pirates, yes they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships” refers to the slave traders who robbed the Africans by selling them into slavery, So him using “I” is referring to the whole African nation. Marley also talks about the importance of escaping mental emancipation . Break through the mind set that we as African Americans are worthless and understand our power as a nation and the difference we could
The music video for J.Cole’s 2013 Crooked Smile is an expressive, and powerful production. It reveals itself as a short film commemorating seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley – Jones who was killed by an officer during a 2010 raid in Michigan. The video was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Video With a Social Message (Kaufman, 2014). It begins with an inconspicuous frame of J. Cole solemnly looking though a window appearing to have been arrested. The video then reverts backwards to show a comparison of two men leading similar lives earlier in the day. It is then revealed these men, although similar, are identified as binary opposites through ideological representation. Throughout the video a repertoire is built showing a white man, and a black man (J. Cole) living their natural lives. They then interact as the white DEA officer enters the home of the black drug dealer during a raid. With guns
In the poem, he mentions black people that were treated unfairly and how many of those people are not recognized as much. He powerfully wrote: “Names lost. Know too many Trayvon Martins / Oscar Grants / and Abner Louimas, know too many / Sean Bells, and Amadou Diallos / Know too well that we are the hard-boiled sons of Emmett Till” (Lines 53-60). This quote shows how many of our black people are discriminated by their skin color are mistreated. Abner Louimas, Sean Bells and Amadou Diallos were men that were victims of police brutality and were shot several times by police officers. Specifically, Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin’s deaths were great examples as to how people were and still are racist. To take a case in point, Emmett Till who was African-American was tortured and killed because he flirted with a white woman. Trayvon Martin was a teenager who was shot and killed just because he went to grab a bag of skittles from his pocket, which the person who shot him thought he was reaching for a weapon. The many examples that Johnson makes help show how racism and stereotypes play a major role in our society because many people are still victims of discrimination. They are automatically stereotyped into a criminal who is about to do something that is illegal. In the society that we live in, blacks do not have any power, they do not get the benefit of the doubt whether or not
Cole’s musical idols, which greatly influenced his musical style. His style captures the attention from younger generations and the adolescent population, whom also came from an uneasy childhood and along the way lost motivation. “I 'm here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don 't follow what you 've been told you 're supposed to do.” (Music times, 2014) Through this message, J. Cole constantly portrays to be an ambition seeking activist. He hopes to project hope in those who are struggling by sharing his life challenges and voicing how he overcame
In the hook of the song, Kendrick reveals the contrast between the past and present of African-American life. In the past, black people have gone from being whipped by slave masters to owning “whips”, which are luxurious and flashy cars, and from slaves being put “inna chains, cah’ we black” to “imagine now, big gold chains full of rocks” as he is alluding to owning expensive jewelry made of diamond and gold. Whips and chains were tools of domination and oppression used against slaves, but Lamar highlights the certainty of the other meaning as now they represent something else- tools of a different kind of oppression. This leads to the belief that slavery stills exist in America but has shifted into the form of mental slavery. Many black youths,
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free”. Which shows how even though the Emancipation Proclamation freed the African Americans from slavery, they still are not free because of segregation. He then transitions to the injustice and suffering that the African Americans face. He makes this argument when he proclaims, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”.
As Reed showed it in the reading “Singing Civil Rights The Freedom Song Tradition” that music played a crucial role in the civil rights movement. This song shows how African Americans were united and working to make a
Cole and there is a song he wrote called "love yours". There is a part of the song that has always stood out for me in this song which goes like, "For what's money without happiness? Or hard times without the people you love, though I'm not sure what's 'bout to happen next, I asked for strength from the Lord up above." For me those words have always been a reference of life and those who we call family. Like every human being, we have all had our good moments in life but when life brings you down, we count on our family to help us come back up. nevertheless that means more then money and power for