Analysis Of How To Pip A Butterfly By Kendrick Lamar
Sometimes a political statement can be clear. “We need to protect the environment”, “I want a bigger public sector, to help the ones in need”, “You shouldn’t discriminate black people”. Some equitable proclamations. But what happens when you fly too Hawaii, complain about the high taxes or can’t help seeing the criminal aspect of the situation of refugees as a matter of course.
In the tune “The Blacker the Berry”, from his third studio album “How to Pimp a Butterfly”, Kendrick Lamar creates a narrator with a radical look on the conflicts between races in America. The narrator claims to be proud of his heritage, talking about the Afro-Americans’ journey from struggling with various prejudices in society of the time toward being able to buy …show more content…
a car just as nice as the white Americans’: “How you no see the whip, left scars pon' me back / But now we have a big whip parked pon' the block”.
The song is full of references from different kind of places, events, persons and musically cultural heritage like, Michael Jordan, February, Compton etc.
It’s impossible to mention every one of these innuendoes, but some can be pointed out. At one point Lamar sings: “How can I tell you I'm making a killin'? / You made me a killer, emancipation of a real nigga”. This is a reference of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which freed enslaved blacks during the Civil War. The sentence is meant as a description of a cycle that white Americans put his people in a box named: “violent uncontrollable “nigga””, and by condemning them through laws etc. they force them stay in this self-perpetuating loop. He also mentions “The Black Panthers”, a militant self-defense group for minority communities. A group that the narrator seems to have a similar aggression as.
Singing the phrase “I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015” repeatedly, Lamar confuses the hearer of the song. It is not until the very last line, the narrator reveals the deeper meaning of the claim of hypocrisy: "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? / When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? / Hypocrite! ". It is now revealed that our narrator has been a part of a gang. A gang who has been treating black people just as horrific as the white ones have. He therefore questions his innocence, a acknowledge an inner conflict between word and
act.
This is when it hits the hearer, that this song isn’t just a political statement about the equal rights of Afro-Americans, but just as much a tale of an internal struggle as mentioned before. It now seems like Lamar isn’t singing to lecture his listener, just as must as he is to inform.
In the tune “The Blacker the Berry”, from his third studio album “How to Pimp a Butterfly”, Kendrick Lamar creates a narrator with a radical look on the conflicts between races in America. The narrator claims to be proud of his heritage, talking about the Afro-Americans’ journey from struggling with various prejudices in society of the time toward being able to buy …show more content…
a car just as nice as the white Americans’: “How you no see the whip, left scars pon' me back / But now we have a big whip parked pon' the block”.
The song is full of references from different kind of places, events, persons and musically cultural heritage like, Michael Jordan, February, Compton etc.
It’s impossible to mention every one of these innuendoes, but some can be pointed out. At one point Lamar sings: “How can I tell you I'm making a killin'? / You made me a killer, emancipation of a real nigga”. This is a reference of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which freed enslaved blacks during the Civil War. The sentence is meant as a description of a cycle that white Americans put his people in a box named: “violent uncontrollable “nigga””, and by condemning them through laws etc. they force them stay in this self-perpetuating loop. He also mentions “The Black Panthers”, a militant self-defense group for minority communities. A group that the narrator seems to have a similar aggression as.
Singing the phrase “I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015” repeatedly, Lamar confuses the hearer of the song. It is not until the very last line, the narrator reveals the deeper meaning of the claim of hypocrisy: "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? / When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? / Hypocrite! ". It is now revealed that our narrator has been a part of a gang. A gang who has been treating black people just as horrific as the white ones have. He therefore questions his innocence, a acknowledge an inner conflict between word and
act.
This is when it hits the hearer, that this song isn’t just a political statement about the equal rights of Afro-Americans, but just as much a tale of an internal struggle as mentioned before. It now seems like Lamar isn’t singing to lecture his listener, just as must as he is to inform.