“This plot is bigger than me, it’s generational hatred
It’s genocism, it’s grimy, little justification
I’m African-American, I’m African
I’m black as the heart of a fuckin’ Aryan
I’m black as the name of Tyrone and Dareous” ( Kendrick Lamar, 2015)
Just a couple of weeks ago Kendrick Lamar was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, as the first non-classical or jazz artist ever. In his music Lamar deals with issues such as racism, gang violence and police brutality and his lyrics have been compared to the work of the writers James Baldwin and Ta-Nehesi Coates. Last year, I read Coates’ book “Between the World and Me” while listening to Lamar’s latest, very praised album “Damn.” The way Coates writes about his blackness, about living as a black man, about having a black body in the United States strikes me as similar to the way Kendrick Lamar raps about his blackness, about living as a black man, about having a black body in the United states.
The police brutality of recent years has mobilized people all over the US and given spark to the Black Lives Matter movement. It arose in the wake of the murder of the black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2013. The following year, the Black Lives Matter Movement proved integral to the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was killed by a police officer. Many black musicians have responded by using their art to raise awareness of issues of racism and police violence—and to voice their own distress. A protest at Cleveland State University demonstrates the intersection of the grassroots movement and music. There activists responded to being harassed by police by chanting rapper Lamar’s song “Alright.” The same chant could be heard during protests against Donald Trump in Chicago in 2016.
“We gon’ be alright / Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon’ be alright”
(Lamar, 2015)
In what may seem to be hopeless situations, activists have drawn hope and strength from the Lamar’s song, and it has, in turn, become something of an anthem for the movement. “Alright” creates an “us”—the group that has been targeted for oppression—and contains both self-affirmation and criticisms of police violence.
“Nigga, and we hate po-po
Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho’ “
(Lamar, 2015)
Lamar has managed to describe in just a few paragraphs what so many members of the black community feel. In spite of the anger and the frustration, Lamar urges the black community to stand together – by rapping “We gon’ be alright”, he refers to the whole community. “Alright” has been a song that encourages and brings the black community together. And that, to me, makes him one of the most important artists of our generation.