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Kendrick lamar pimp a butterfly analysis
Kendrick lamar pimp a butterfly analysis
Kendrick lamar pimp a butterfly analysis
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To Pimp a Butterfly To Pimp a Butterfly is Kendrick Lamar's latest album release. A new style that Kendrick has never done before. Featuring 16 new songs such as "King Kunta", "Alright" and several other songs that quickly become some of his top hits. The album also featured other artist such as Bilal, Snoop Dog, and Rapsody. But before I go on about "To Pimp a Butterfly" I'll give some background on the artist Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born in Compton California on June 17, 1987. When he was young he started to put lyrics into songs about his life in the rough city of Compton. He started his rapping career as K-Dot at the age of 16. In 2010 he dropped the name K-Dot and went by his name Kendrick Lamar. During this time he dropped several mixtapes and his first album "Section.80". This got the attention of hip-hop legend Dr. Drea. Drea signed Kendrick to his own independent record label "Aftermath Entertainment". Here he released 3 new albums including "To Pimp a Butterfly". The album starts off as a story of sorts. The first three songs "Wesley's Theory", "For Free?", and "King Kunta" all describe Kendrick's life as he becomes successful and famous. At the end of each of these songs Kendrick has a saying, "I remember you was conflicted, miss using your influence". As …show more content…
the songs go by they talk about the downsides of being famous, and how Kendrick feels imprisoned by the environment. Besides the meaning of the songs I personally love Kendrick's new style for them. "Wesley's Theory" starts out with a funky beat with the saxophone that’s upbeat and groovy, while he sings about how he gets signed by Dr. Drea. "For Free" uses an old fashion piano and a drum beat that speeds up and slows down as he sings his song, which is about how people are trying to use him for his money. "King Kunta" goes with a similar beat throughout the song that Kendrick uses to vent his anger out in song, calling out everyone who's just trying to use him. Its here where the album takes a turn. The next part of Kendrick's story tells about how for awhile Kendrick locked himself away from everything. The song "institutionalized" kicks it off with a slow mellow beat with a kind of sad clarinet. He talks about how he's trapped in this "ghetto" and he cant escape or remember his past. "These Walls" the next song likes to keep it funky and upbeat. Going on about "if these walls could talk" they would tell you you’re a failure and worthless. The end of the song the beat slows and Kendrick sings about things that happened before he became famous. My personally favorite line is about his best friend who was murdered and the killer got away. He then adds to his quote "I remember you was conflicted, miss using your influence, sometimes I did the same, abusing my power full of resentment, resentment that turned into a deep Depression, found myself screaming in a hotel room." Continuing on his downward spiral, Kendrick entered a deep depression and as said was screaming in a hotel room. "U" actually starts off with Kendrick screaming with a very sad and scary mix of sounds. He also locked himself in a dark room to record this song. He goes on about these voices in his head about how he's irresponsible and selfish. He then goes on about a friend in the hospital how he only face timed him then he died. Finally the song ends with him drinking from bottles and talking about how everything's his fault. My favorite song "Alright" which is all about being alright, stays fast paced and makes someone like me want to get up and move. The song though is all about him feeling better about himself and that it'll all be alright. Then adding more to his quote "I remember you was conflicted, miss using your influence, sometimes I did the same, abusing my power full of resentment, resentment that turned into a deep Depression, found myself screaming in a hotel room, the evil's of Lucy were all around me, so I went running for answers, until I came home." At the end of Kendrick's story he found himself returning to his hometown Compton.
The rest of the songs just describe his time as he returns home. Each one with a different lesson he learned from people he left behind, including even his mother. The songs, however are all very different music wise. From slow beats with acoustic guitar to fast drum beats with some orchestra instruments to back it up. The album then ends with the song "i" Kendrick's most upbeat song yet. It's about how he loves himself and that he's changed very much. You can even hear it his voice how much he's changed throughout the album. He changed the verses of this song multiple times to keep it all
positive. To summarize all of the album, Kendrick Lamar started to become imprisoned in his successful career as a rapper. He felt that he was using his power and fame wrong and eventually entered a deep depression. He then went looking for answers to his problems, and found himself home in Compton. Where he found old friends and family that taught him lessons about your home and your family. He then came out of it all as a completely changed man, and also made himself one of the highest rated hip hop albums in 2015. With new funky and groovy styles you wouldn't hear anywhere else. That also came with a story about himself.
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011) is a 1 hour and 40 minute documentary that observes the black power movement in American history. This film is directed by Swedish director Goran Hugo Olson and has detailed footage that was shot during the 1960s and 1970s by Swedish journalists. The footage largely focuses on the black power movements. The film allows viewers to not only grasp a better understanding of this movement but allows us to understand why this movement appealed to Swedish journalists. The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 includes vintage interviews with Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, and other prominent leaders during the Black Power Movement. The documentary also contains contemporary audio interviews and commentaries from various entertainers, artists, activists, and scholars, including but not limited to: Harry Belafonte, Talib Kweli, Melvin Van Peebles, Erykah Badu, Abiodun Oyewele, and Questlove from The Roots.
"Certain songs might tell you a little something about my upbringing. Certain songs might tell you how I relate to others life experiences. On the album I never get specific on all my dirt because I don't feel I need to talk about that. I want to put the spotlight on Mobile, and give the listeners an idea of what's going on here from a young black mans perspective." Listen up!
It starts by describing a young woman in college, stating, “she has no idea what she’s doing in college, the major she majored in don’t make no money, she won’t drop out, her parents will look at her funny (West).” By doing this the song establishes that this woman wants success but she doesn’t know how to obtain it since she was basically pushed into pursuing a career in college that she was unsure of in order to obtain success. The song furthers the story of the woman when she states that she gives up and goes on to say that her tuition money is enough to buy a few pairs of new shoes. The desire for success and frustration of not being able to achieve it, is what essentially leads the woman to take this shortcut of dropping out of school to acquire material possessions in the “now” instead of the slower, more standard route of finishing her education and finding success through that. Kanye West then describes in the song his addiction to material possessions when he began to acquire wealth from his music career.
Lamar has been successfully achieving his dream by rapping about the stress and difficult situations he has encountered but strongly claims that we will all be alright in his song, “Alright.” He released a song called “i” that reflects how violence has increased in the cities and how he wishes everyone should love each other as humans. His last song on “To Pimp A Butterfly” called “Mortal Man” he states “only because you don’t wear the same color as mine, that doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a human being.” He clearly states how he understands the reputations of other gang members may seem important but should all still respect others as people. Lamar has been a role model to several students from the city of Compton that was able to create a scholarship called “Be Alright” that is based off the same song called “Alright.” Kendrick Lamar has been respectively producing music for his fans without a doubt of impressive beats and
... his song ‘Let Me Die in My Footsteps’ where it focus on the practice of fallout shelter during cold war. But later, as mentioned earlier, he found that this movement gave a little room for individual subjectivity.
He discusses how his mom got him christmas presents and how he was shocked due to being from a very poor family due to not having the advantage of being white. He continues to say how his emotions are pouring out of him as in he is letting all of the stuff that he has gone through that was hard out and he is ready to let it all out for the best of his health. He mainly discusses the pain he has gone through and how it is hard growing up as a young black male. After this main song, he continues to open up on how he coped with this heartache that he has gone through.
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
In “Formation”, a young African American teenager is seen hip hop dancing in front of a white wall with “Stop shooting us” painted over it. A barricade of cops is then shown, raising their arms as they stand across from the child when he surrenders and raises his arms. This scene signifies the antagonization of the black people and culture by the police around the country, and calls both sides of the scale for truce making. In the track “Freedom”, Kendrick Lamar, who has been vocal about police brutality for most of his career as a rapper, has a guest verse where he criticizes major news media companies for misconstruing the messages in his work. Responding to Geraldo Rivera of FOX News, who concluded his critique of Kendrick Lamar’s song “Alright” by saying that it has done more damage to the black community than racism, Kendrick Lamar inserts a bar which goes “Channel 9 News tell me I’m moving backwards.” The lyric also creates a contrast between the previous track “Forward” with the use of the adverb “backwards”. Lamar continues with an emphasis on the feeling of confrontation and oppression when an African American encounters the police in the United States with the following self-explanatory
Kendrick Lamar’s critically acclaimed album To Pimp a Butterfly finally achieved the attention it deserved when it won the Grammy for “Album of the Year”. The album reflects on the struggles that both Lamar faces as a black artist and to the struggles of social injustice that all people of color face today. Although the provocative album cover (a group of young black men sitting on top of a dead white judge) depicts a powerful feeling of anger that is prevalent and connects it to an important justice issue, there is no better example of what Lamar’s argument is throughout the album than in the song “Alright.” Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” provides hope to the people fighting for social justice with his personal experiences, examples of racial
Tupac Amaru Shakur was an African-American rapper, poet, and record producer during the 1990’s. In his adolescent years, he attended the Baltimore School for the Arts where he took acting and dance classes, like ballet. He was taught radical politics by his mother, which helped him develop ideas about topics he would later use in his many works. At an early age, Tupac had seen the injustices of the real world. His mother was a former Black Panther activist who turned to substance abuse during Tupac’s childhood. Aside from that, he and his mother also moved many times while they lived together in New York City. While Tupac was in Baltimore, he discovered rap; not long after, he and his mother moved to the West Coast where he joined the rap group
While on a recent carefree jaunt throughout Harlem, I was introduced to the lyrical genius of one “Big L.” As is common of all true artists, Mr. L passed before his time, but not without a legacy. You see, it is the will of the Almighty Himself that I elucidate the meaning of Mr. L’s first major work, “Put it On,” in order for it to be made accessible to the common man and the upper crust alike, so that this truly majestic piece may live for eternity in the bosom of humankind. To this end, I have composed a line-for-line translation of the complex, sophisticated diction, which, I expect, will henceforth serve as the standard through which all scholars will study this master of the English language.
Kanye Omari West was born in Atlanta, Georgia on June, 8 1977. His mom and him soon relocated to Chicago, Illinois after his parents divorced. Kanye spent all of his youth life in Chicago. He spent his time during the school year with his mother, who was an English professor, and spent summers with his dad, who was an award-winning photographer then turned church counselor. “I was taught to think on my own growing up, that’s what a lot of black kids don’t get” (Newsmakers 2). During his time in high school he became friends with producer No I.D., who was working with the rapper Common prior to him becoming famous. This is where Kanye got his beginnings in the producing industry. Kanye wen...
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
Whips and chains have played an important role in Black American’s oppressive history. In the days of slavery, chains were used to dehumanize us, restrain us and keep us from escaping our oppression, while whips were used to reinforce the oppression and our inferiority as a race. Today, literal whips and chains no longer represent the oppression of Black Americans; they have been replaced with the drive to obtain modern day “whips and chains”, or simply put, material possessions- a new, slightly self-imposed slavery. This is evident in the unifying factor of hip-hop music, which glorifies a lavish lifestyle sometimes at the cost of morals, values, and self worth.
This song doesn’t only deal with sensory description; it also deals with figurative language. One example of figurative language is used by Ludacris when he says "I don't know, but you gotta stop trippin." The word trippin doesn’t actually mean tripping and falling, it means you have to stop worrying. He uses this word to relate to the different kind of people who listen to this song. Ludacris also uses figurative language when he says "Used to play back then, now you all grown-up like Rudy Huxtable." This figurative language is a simile, because he is comparing growing up to Rudy Huxtable, using the word like. Finally the last piece of figurative language is used by Usher when he says "Got me fiendin' like Jodeci." This also is a form of a simile, because he is stating that he has and urge like Jodeci by using the word like. That is part of the definition of a simile. Songs do not only deal with sensory description, but also figurative language.