Lamar Element Sparknotes

Media has been questioned on what is real or fake in life. Individuals manipulate the uses of images to create their own fantasy for people to believe in, both in good and bad ways. People neglect the realities of life by selecting specific visuals to display to create biases. In the music industry, videos are often used as medium of controlling the minds and perceptions of what people think is going on in the world or what is a glorious way of living. Musical artists create the perception that living a rich, lavish lifestyle is more important and true than showing the true aspects and even the struggles that people go through on a daily basis that are often overlooked. Kendrick Lamar’s music video, Element, was made on June 27, 2017. The music
video exposes the flaws of modern Hip-Hop culture. Element is a real-world depiction of Kendrick Lamar’s upbringing in Compton, the never-ending spiral of violence and the strength within the community. The video depicts the adversities Kendrick Lamar experienced through an emotional appeal. At the same time, calling out other rap artists such as Big Sean, Drake, and Jay Electronica about their styles of rap which misrepresents reality. Kendrick Lamar is an award-winning rap artist and songwriter who proudly represents his birth city of Compton. Lamar came from a family built on tough-love. His parents wanted to raise their son in purity away from gang violence that was rampant in Chicago. However, the violence never ceased. Lamar went through trials and tribulations because of gang violence, the crack epidemic, and riots specifically the Rodney King verdict in 1992. Years later, he eventually experienced his own “wickedness”. His own “wickedness” of inflicting violence and pain on others. The music video shows Lamar hitting another individual showing much of his past (00:02:31-00:02:34). Showing his involvement with violence with other people depicts his past as a young teen being with the wrong crowd (00:01:14-00:01:18). However, he mentioned his own experience of feeling pain after being assaulted at the age of 15 by 3-4 guys, “I been stomped out in front of my momma” (00:00:34-00:00:36). Overall, the song and the video itself connects to Lamar’s feeling of atonement for the troubles he caused to others and himself. Moreover, the emotional appeal of Element comes from the use of Gordon Park’s photography to add emphasis on the destruction or creation of serenity in Lamar’s childhood. The mesmerized group of young people watching the small house engulfed in flames shows the numbness and familiarity of devastation that thrived through the streets of Compton (00:00:23-00:00:28). Relating to Lamar’s experiences of witnessing arrests and deaths at a young age. As mentioned in a Rolling Stones interview, “He saw his first murder at age five, a teenage drug dealer gunned down outside Lamar's apartment building. "After that," he says, "you just get numb to it"” (Lamar). A little boy being shown in a state of serenity as a bug caresses his forehead goes also in line with the feeling of numbness Lamar felt from the passing of his grandmothers with the following lyrics: “Bitch, all my grandmas dead. So ain't nobody prayin' for me, I'm on your head, ayy” (00:00:39-00:00:43). The foreground around the boy is blurred to show unclear state of the outside world which is full of despair. Next scene of the music video inspired by Parks shows a little boy holding a toy gun pointing it in the path of a passing vehicle (00:01:46-00:01:49). The original photo is from Park’s project to capture life of African Americans who were negatively affected by segregation in 1956, in which, Lamar incorporated to show correspondence to the destruction of a child being part of the violence occurring in Compton. Also, a parallel to the death of Tamir Rice, a young African American boy who was shot and killed by police. In spite of the turmoil Lamar endured in his life, Element shows comforting and empowering moments of unity and guidance.
A group of black Muslim women signify the roles of religion and the maternal comfort that the women of Compton gave to their sons and husbands (00:02:57-00:03:01). In Lamar’s life, his mother was his breath of life and his reason to stay out of trouble as much as he could when he was a teen. Additionally, the roles of older men enlightening the young men in strength and dignity occurs in two instances. The first instance is a group of young men standing and slowly punching the air in unison which is an exact parallel to Park’s photo series of black Muslim men in self-defense training
(00:01:42-00:01:45).
Furthermore, the second instance is a young boy being taught where to hit and how to hold the perfect stance if he was in a fight (00:01:04-00:01:11). The scene correlates to Park’s 1966 photo of famous boxer and activist, Muhammad Ali, teaching a young fan of his. This sums up to Lamar’s father, who wanted to teach in his son about what life is not right for him. Lamar spoke on this in a Rolling Stones interview, “"They wanted to keep me innocent," Lamar says now. "I love them for that." To this day, he and his dad have never discussed it. "I don't know what type of demons he has," Lamar says, "but I don't wanna bring them shits up." (Says Kenny, "I don't want to talk about that bad time. But I did what I had to do").” Overall, Lamar addresses the foolishness of rappers in his generation and in past generations on how they falsify the true realities of the world.
He expresses his unity and motivations are to improve his city not to impress his fans on social media such as Instagram in the line, “I don't do it for the 'Gram, I do it for Compton” (00:00:50-00:00:53). Towards the end of the video, Lamar states how rappers nowadays believe that being rich and overly famous is the way to live in life, “Niggas thought they wasn't gonna see me, huh? Niggas thought that K-Dot real life. Was the same life they see on TV, huh? Niggas wanna flex on me and be in L.A. for free, huh? Next time they hit the 10 freeway, we need receipt, huh? 'Cause most of y'all ain't real. Most of y'all gon' squeal. Most of y'all just envy, but jealousy get you killed. Most of y'all throw rocks and try to hide your hand. Just say his name and I promise that you'll see Candyman. Because it's all in your eyes, most of y'all tell lies” (00:02:34-00:03:05). He goes on to say, “But it's a difference between black artists and wack artists”, stating that real black artists would show truths of life about social injustice, violence, and emotional turmoil. Fake artists want to create a fantasy to gain more popularity and wealth than empowering their people and showing the world the issues at hand that are often
overlooked. In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar creates an intellectual, thought-provoking piece of art. At the same time, acknowledging and making remembrance of Gordon Parks and his fantastic photography to bring voices to the African American community. Lamar’s emotional appeal creates a sphere of collective pain and compassion from his viewers. Lamar sharing his life experiences may give viewers more insight on what media platforms and musical artists manipulate to gain more viewers and how demeaning it can be.