The Blacker the Berry: Kendrick Lamar’s Attempt to Lyrically Unpack 21st Century Racism

On March 15, 2015, Grammy-Award winning artist Kendrick Lamar surprise released his third studio album, entitled To Pimp A Butterfly. Rife with rapid fire rhymes over jazz influenced beats, the album has thus far reached a certified gold status, cementing its place as a successful follow up to the platinum selling 2012 smash hit album good kid, m.A.A.d. city. While the album has received numerous critical accolades, it is almost objectively less accessible than its predecessor. The lead single, “i,” moved gradually up the charts, and raised more questions than it answered about the forthcoming album. “The Blacker the Berry,” a viciously pertinent, almost violent sounding single followed, while a performance on The Colbert Report capped off the promotional tour with an untitled track not featured on the album. One of the major criticisms of Lamar’s effort is that it is considerably hard to unpack, in that multiple meanings and themes are weaved throughout the album that ultimately makes one succinct listen a near exhausting experience. I would argue though, that Lamar has created an album reflective of the collective state of hip-hop in the 21st century. As a whole, his message can be summed up by simply stating that hip-hop has been bastardized and repackaged by the music industry, as yet another example of African-American culture being filtered through the power structure of white supremacy.

To unlock Lamar’s admittedly overwhelming album, it is important to examine both the title and album cover for the project. The definition of To Pimp A Butterfly, originally titled “2 Pimp A Caterpillar” as homage to the late Tupac Shakur, carries a weight that influences how the rest of the album is understood. I believe the origins of this title come from the final verse of the untitled track performed a mere few days prior to the album release. In this verse, Lamar raps “a piece of mines, that’s what the white man wanted when I rhyme, telling me that he selling me for just $10.99, I go platinum from rapping I do the company fine” (Lamar, Genius.com). This is a clear indictment of the music industry, which he labels as the “white man” throughout this song, before ending by calling the industry “your master.” The reference to slavery carries immense importance, as Lamar clearly views the industry as a slave owner who will extort his talent for money. On a larger scale, this translates to Lamar’s view on hip-hop music and African-American culture in general, as he elaborates on throughout the album. The “pimping” of these ideas, as he calls it, is significant, given the roots of hip-hop as a messenger and tool for black power and resistance. As Kopano (2002) writes, “rap was created and continues to exist as a rhetoric of resistance. Though rap artists’ approaches may differ, as an art form rap music uniformly draws on and expands the Black rhetorical tradition” (p. 204). Rap and hip-hop is rooted in African-American culture, but has been mainstreamed and commercialized through the music industry. Before moving on to the actual album, it is clear that the cover art holds some rhetorical significance as well. The refrain of “Wesley’s Theory,” the first track on the album, warningly chants “never should have gave n****s money, go back home.” Yet on the album cover, we are given an actualized version of that refrain, as numerous African-American men, ranging from toddlers to elderly, are shown posing with wads of cash and liquor bottles in front of the White House whilst standing over a deceased judge. The cover continues to further the idea of African-American culture being bastardized, as these men are shown celebrating with their perceived winnings, all under the watchful eye of the White House, an obscenely literal representation of American government and power structures.

Before dissecting the lyrical content of the album, which is a monumental task on its own, it is important to consider the album’s production, which features a star-studded lineup including Pharrell Williams, ThunderCat, and Flying Lotus, to name a few. Despite the many uniquely individual spins each producer brought to the table, the album as a unit has a cohesively jazzy feel, which I believe is a direct reference to what Lamar is trying to do. In highlighting the repackaging of African-American culture, Lamar is only aided by lacing his biting accusations over a distinctly Afrocentric addition to American music. As Cummings and Roy (2002) claim, “rappers are informed by the African-American history and experiences…there are characteristics of rap that show the persistence of black aesthetic” (p. 61). I’d venture to say Lamar’s inclusion of jazz wasn’t due to his recent listening trends, but was instead to conjure up the idea of reclaiming African-American music, specifically hip-hop. By recalling jazz on nearly every song, he makes a strong statement about the place of African-American music in mainstream culture in the past, and where he fears it may be heading again, or worse, currently is.

Instead of tackling the entirety of the 16-track, nearly 80 minute long album, I’m going to begin by examining the running poem throughout, which is added to with each subsequent song on the album. The final product, recited to a resurrected Tupac on the albums closing track, “Mortal Man,” details Lamar’s personal struggles with his rise to fame in relation to the struggles he’s faced his entire life. Lamar references his own “survivor’s guilt,” which he delves into heavily in a sobering verse on “u,” in which he discusses the death of a friend suffered while he was away touring. The music industry is very much an escape for those struggling in minority communities, and while Lamar has successfully escaped through his astronomical rise to stardom, he struggles with the concept of leaving his people behind to fight a continuous war. While that war is ongoing, being churned through the music industry has opened his own eyes to a new war, which he refers to as “apartheid and discrimination.” He ends the poem with a call for respect between African-Americans, as the more important war, in his words, is to “unify and stop the enemy from killing us.” Keeping in mind Lamar’s perceived return to raps rebellious roots, there is perhaps no better a time for an album of this nature to be released. As racial tensions flared across the country in the fall and again this spring, Lamar attempts to get at the root of the issues he’s been exposed to through his excursion into the mainstream. The fact that he is reciting this poem to Tupac is equally as important, as the late rap legend exists as one of the more politically and socially conscious rappers to ever do it. Lamar see’s this album as his attempt to reach a similar level, and he may have done so, although it is a giant leap to undertake.

Using the recurring poem as a base, it is necessary to tackle to two lead singles that accompanied the album prior to its release. Both “i” and “The Blacker the Berry” exist as dichotomous, addressing the same issue from drastically contrasting sides. By examining these two songs, which were intended as singles to be the mainstreams initial look into the heart of the album, it is possible to neatly contrive a strong message from Lamar’s 16-song epic. “i,” the first single to be released, serves a championing call for self-love within African-American communities. Not surprisingly, Lamar’s manager tweeted a photo of Malcolm X, who preached self-love, along with a link to the song. The song’s chorus repeats a joyful shout of “I love myself,” neatly fit in between three separate verses that exemplify Lamar’s self-love amidst worldly struggles. He counters that with “The Blacker the Berry,” a harrowing, pointed criticism of black on black violence, and how he views current protestors as hypocritical for participating in their own culture of violence while protesting another. In relation to the poem, this is the new war he has come to understand, and the lessons he’s learned are ones he wants to bring back home to Compton, CA, his hometown. His proposed solution to “The Blacker the Berry” is the song “i,” in that self-love should be used as a unifying tool to help African-Americans overcome the systems of oppression that create black on black crime in this country. It is particularly telling, then, that Lamar changed the lyrics of “i” on the album version of the track. The refrain now echoes, “I’ll put a bullet in the back of the back of the head of the police,” in between his chants of “I love myself.” Although this approach is certainly ultra-violent, it represents the path of rebellion for African-Americans to embark upon once overcoming interpersonal violence becomes a reality.

Although there is much more to unpack in this monumental album, the poem and three previously released tracks, along with the title and cover art, do a good job of synopsizing the album’s message in it’s entirety. Kendrick is rebelling against the bastardization of hip-hop music, as it is filtered through structures of white supremacy and “pimped.” Returning hip-hop to an artistic expression of radical protest and rebelliousness, Lamar then turns his attention to nationwide examples of oppression, particularly the violence within African-American communities that exists due to the forces of outside oppression. Overall, it is a gargantuan task to undertake, but much like the late Tupac Shakur, Kendrick Lamar may be well ahead of his time with this release.