Black Music Month: Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly

"They wanna say it's a war outside, bomb in the street, gun in the hood, mob of police, rock on the corner with a line for the fiend and a bottle full of lean and a model on the scheme"

To Pimp A Butterfly is Kendrick Lamar's follow up to good kid m.A.A.d. city. Some have claimed that it's the blackest album of the decade. Others have claimed that it single handedly ushered in a new wave of conscious hip hop, a style that many have considered to have faded in favor on commercial tracks. The most important album to hip hop in the last decade, the best produced album and other wide sweeping accolades are easily debatable. One that can't be denied is it's a good album.

Production on this album features a lot of samples from jazz and funk songs. It even features an appearance from the legendary George Clinton. It seems this was the first time a lot of people have heard these genres used in rap music, thus they were left awestruck. One issue is that in some places the album can become crowded. Similar to his previous album Kendrick does what a lot of rappers have given up on, skits and interludes. The problem is in places it seems like he's trying to make up for all the skits that were never born. The album can also be somewhat scattered and all over the place but considering Kendrick's discussions of depression on the album it makes sense. One second you're up and the next you're down.

The idea of pimping a butterfly seems like a strange metaphor, but it makes sense. A butterfly is a beautiful creature. Pimping it would mean exploiting it for financial gain with no consideration of effects it has on the butterfly. One consistent theme is that the butterfly is Kendrick himself, a rap artist. Corporations pimp the rap artist and make millions from their sales but don't care for them as people and the music suffers. That's a viable theory, but in my eyes, it's wrong. I think Kendrick is the butterfly, but not as a rap artist, as a black person.

Think about it for a second. Even if we discount hip hop, black culture is constantly exploited by corporations. They do whatever they can to seem cool, and to them cool is black. Red Bull doesn't give you wings, it gives you swag. Nobody is watching Mob Wives, better get that Love and Hip Hop crossover. The same people who chastise black people for the use of ebonics will publish books called "Communicating With The Multicultural Consumer." Depending where you live you've probably seen AMC's notice to turn off your phone, or a commercial for Popeye's Chicken. When you see it might be funny, but the fact is the people who wrote these things don't care about black people it's suddenly a little more depressing. As black people, we are the butterflies, and corporate America is pimping us.

The opening lines of the album are the same that inspired Black Star. It's a snippet of Boris Gardiner's song "Every Nigger Is A Star." The snippet leads directly into the first track "Wesley's Theory," which may starts like a standard baller rap track. The hook states "we should've never gave niggas money, go back home, money, go back home," which is a common thought that wealthy white people seem to have. An example is Donald Sterling who fed and clothed his players only for them to be ungrateful, as he said. The first verse deals with what most black people do when they get money, we spend it while we have it and don't consider the consequences. The second verse points out it's better to actually invest the money. Kendrick points out that a house and car are nice, but forty acres and a mule can be used to make more money.

"Institutionalized," is a track that plays on a lot of things. First is the fact that a lot of people feel trapped inside the ghetto. Kendrick states "I'm trapped inside the ghetto and I ain't proud to admit it
Institutionalized, I keep running back for a visit," Kendrick may be richer and free but his mind still wanders to the ghetto and that's where he goes. He's not the first person to feel this way either. On "Reach Out," Nas played with the issue as well "too hood to be in them Hollywood circles, and you’re too rich to be in that hood that birthed you." As someone raised in the hood you don't exactly fit in with the wealthy lifestyle, but at the same time going back to the hood could jeopardize your life. The track also features Snoop Dogg who states "you can take your boy out the hood but you can't take the hood out the homie," this isn't even the first time Snoop himself has played on the issue. On his own track "Raised In The Hood," Snoop used these exact same lines, and it's apparent he still holds it true. Going back even further The Comrads felt the same way on their track "Homeboyz." It's a funny feeling when you want to go home to the hood but not everyone there is as receptive as you expected. Yet, it's still your home because you've been institutionalized by the ghetto.

The song "These Walls," features Kendrick talking about the sugar walls in the first verse. That could seem shallow but sometimes you have to dive deeper to get the message. The second verse is about the hood. "Knock these walls down, that’s my religion, walls feeling like they ready to close in
I suffocate, then catch my second wind," Kendrick wants to knock down the walls between the hood and everyone else. Redlining is a method housing lenders use to keep minorities outside of wealthy areas. Effectively leaving them walled into the hood. With gentrification the red line keeps shrinking, thus suffocating us. People end up living on top of each other, it's why apartment complexes in the hood are built so high, to keep stacking us on top of each other.

Third verse tackles prison walls "retaliation is strong, you even dream about me, killed my homeboy and God spared your life, dumb criminal got indicted same night." The walls that trap the third person are prison and it's not any coincidence that the number of black males in prison within America is higher than some countries entire prison populations. Mandatory sentencing for non violent crimes and for profit prisons have made sure of that. Just the other day a prison corporation sued a state because they didn't have enough prisoners. It's simple really, America was built on free labor from blacks, slave labor. The 13th amendment abolished slavery unless you're in prison. The exact wording is "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The prisons fill with black people and you get your free slave labor.

The song "Hood Politics," is a perfect depiction of why a lot of black don't care about politics. We face so many issues day to day that render politics useless. No matter how many laws change nothing in the hood changes. We're too distracted by other things to listen to politicians that only come around during election season. In Kendrick's case he states "I don't give a fuck about no politics in rap, my nigga, my lil homie Stunna Deuce ain't never coming back, my nigga." If that wasn't enough in the second verse he states:

"The LAPD gambling, scrambling, football numbers slandering, niggas names on paper, you snitched all summer, streets don’t fail me now, they tell me it's a new gang in town from Compton to Congress, set tripping all around, ain’t nothing new, but a flu of new Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-licans, red state versus a blue state, which one you governing, they give us guns and drugs, call us thugs, make it they promise to fuck with you, no condom, they fuck with you,Obama say, 'what it do'"

Kendrick is stating that politicians are no better than the gang members they love to bring up. They're still feuding based on colors. Then they promise to help you, but take money from big corporations and pass policies that only hurt you in the long run. "Make it they promise to fuck with you, no condom, they fuck with you," in other words, politicians are fucking us raw. We get screwed over and only walk away with the raw end of a deal. Meanwhile every year we hear about a few police scandals where they're either selling drugs, paying gangs to commit crimes or something us. The police are no better than gang members but they expect to be looked at like some kind of heroes and that just doesn't work.

"Complexion (A Zulu Story)," is a much needed track that discusses the complex issue of skin complexion. Kendrick has some nice bars, but the real stand out here is Rapsody. Being  a dark skinned woman herself she's able to enlighten people on how stupid is that we stereotype people based on skin color and how it can hurt people. Then she goes on to encourage people to accept who they are. A standout part of her verse is "12 years of age, thinking my shade too dark, I love myself, I no longer need Cupid, enforcing my dark side like a young George Lucas, light don’t mean you smart, being dark don’t make you stupid." We've heard dark skinned rappers like Wale and Talb Kweli discuss the effect their skin tone had on them. Yet, here's Rapsody giving a woman's voice to the issue and it's extra potent because dark skinned women have it worse than anyone else. People constantly degrade them and ask why are they mad at jokes. If her voice doesn't get you to change the way you think about it, nothing will and that's sad.

"Blacker The Berry," was a horrible track for a single and standing alone it sounds like something Don Lemon or Ben Carson would write. In the context of the album it makes a lot more sense. Standing alone it sounds like he's doing the black conservative standard of "if we don't respect ourselves why should police." When placed in the context of the album it paints a picture of not only a man conflicted but a race. David Banner once stated "we sell drugs, but we gonna sell drugs to ourselves, we bang, but we only bang on our self, we do every fucking negative thing and niggas is so hard, niggas on radio, on cd's, on tapes, and on movies, they got guns, they got pistols, but ain't nobody shooting it at nothing but they self." We do all these things to ourselves, other black people, in our own neighborhoods, but we don't do this to politicians and police officers. We're constantly hurting ourselves when we leave others who are hurting us alone. We love ourselves as black people, yet we're still hurting ourselves.

W.E.B. Du Bois has a book called "The Souls of Black Folk," where he discusses the idea of a double soul or consciousness. The double soul is something only black Americans have. One part is our African soul. We're proud and strong, we love us and we have a deep love for our culture. The other soul is the American soul. Through this soul we subconsciously hate ourselves for not fitting in to the American image. We simultaneously love everything that makes us black yet we hate it because we can't be seen as just regular Americans. We love our black skin, the way it shines when wet, the fact that we don't get sunburns, yet we hate it because we're always the person of interest, we're stopped and frisked and can't drive without being pulled over. We love our hair, but we hate that everyone else wants to pet us. We love the fact that it makes us unique, but we hate the fact that it makes us stand out. That is Du Bois idea of a double soul. In the book he goes on to describe a song of sorrow. The song of sorrow is a metaphorical song we sing of unhappiness. Due to our internal conflict we can never truly find happiness because no matter which soul we choose to embrace we let the other die and feel empty. That is the idea of a double soul. "Blacker The Berry," can be seen as the modernization of  this theory, it is the song of sorrow.

"i" is Kendrick finally coming to love not only himself but black people all. He dedicates a verse to Oprah and it can be seen as one of the most important on the album:

"So I'ma dedicate this one verse to Oprah on how the infamous, sensitive N-word control us, so many artists gave her an explanation to hold us, well, this is my explanation straight from Ethiopia, N-E-G-U-S definition: royalty; King royalty - wait listen, N-E-G-U-S description: Black emperor, King, ruler, now let me finish, the history books overlook the word and hide it."

Oprah has long been someone who constantly bashes hip hop as well as people who use the word nigga. Kendrick attempts to get through to her where rapper like Nas, Jay Z, and Ludacris have failed before. Will it work, probably not but it's important to hear anyway.

To Pimp a Butterfly is an album that covers a lot of ground. I didn't even touch on Kendrick's mid-album depression. The blackest album of the decade can be debated ad nauseam but one thing that can't be denied is it's a very black album. There are some concepts that every black person doesn't need to hear, that's obvious. However, Kendrick is in a position to speak to a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't be reached. There's some dark stuff on the album that people would not hear any other way. There's a lot of lessons throughout and for some of us it's just remedial learning but for others it's the first time they heard it. It's an album of self hate and self love as well as a portrait of butterflies being pimped.

Feel free to follow along with our Black Music Month Series

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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