Kendrick Lamar: 'A Voice For All'

“A Voice for All”
A lyric is characterized by expressing spontaneous, direct feeling. In song, lyrics are the most essential element of what makes up the song. The medium of song can be an excellent way to express themes and ideas to the public. One of the most popular artists in the modern music scene, Kendrick Lamar, does a great deal more than just rap. Lamar pushes social issues in his songs through the subtle but deep meanings he embeds in them. Some of the most common themes in Lamar’s songs are that of racism, equality, and police brutality. These ideas can be seen most clearly in his song entitled “XXX”, in which Lamar touches on all of the aforementioned issues. The recurrence of themes like equality and fair treatment shows what Kendrick

One of Lamar’s most influence and issue-packed songs is “XXX”, of his most recent album, DAMN. Upon first listen, it would be easy to dismiss this song as just another generic rap song, but it is far from that. To start, the formal aspects are very eloquent, inciting meaning left and right. The song is essentially broken up into four distinct sections which each having its own pace and flow. The first section starts off very slow and calm without an appearance by Kendrick Lamar himself. Instead, it serves as a warm up introducing the topic and ideas of what is to follow. The word America is repeated several times in the first section emphasizing the point that what is to follow is a description of problems or issues that are occurring in our own backyard, America. After the intro, Lamar makes his first appearance where he starts to get into the core of the song. Shortly after, in the third section, the beat and flow pick up substantially and an almost angry tone emerges as the content becomes heavier. During this section, his word choice changes using more aggressive words and touching on more controversial subjects to emphasize the problems he sees in society. Finally, as the song winds down, the pace slows with the meanings becoming subtler. After an initial analysis, it becomes apparent that Lamar utilizes word choice meticulously to further develop themes in

While this is a very intriguing question, what first needs to be answered is, what exactly is a public intellectual? As defined by the Encyclopedia of American Studies, public intellectuals are, “intellectuals who in their writings or other contributions orient themselves toward the larger audience of educated individuals” (Jacoby) To be considered a public intellectual, one must first accomplish the feat of being an intellectual. Correspondingly, being considered an intellectual means different thing to different people, but in general, to be an intellectual, one has to be highly educated and skilled in a certain area of study. To fulfill the public requirement, one must be able to spread their ideas to the public in an understandable way without having to simplify it. While many people can eloquently express their ideas, few are able do so on the large scale to the public. With all that has been mentioned above, becoming a public intellectual is a strenuous and arduous process resulting in very few public intellectuals in modern society. Those that do ascend to this stature are very prestigious and have immense