Kendrick Lamar & Kanye West | Activism Remastered For The 21st Century
By: The Red Being Shot
Tags: Music, America, Politics, Rap

How much do I indulge in before I’m considered un-Black? When have I become exorbitant, just too much to handle? When am I too powerful? How does a black become more than just another slave on the plantation, more than just a fly on the wall? How far is too far? On Yeezus, Kanye’s repeated use of perverting civil rights and his carefree attitude take full effect. Sempiternally unflinching and never backing down, Kanye, coming fresh off the masterful and beauteously constructed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Yeezus delights itself in a recklessly intense and splendidly alluring conveyance of character. Yeezus was riotous, boyish, brash and boisterous and an open armed welcome to all of Ye’s biggest opposers. His tone, once turned poetic, bleary eyed and wide on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is now more shorthanded, witty and snappy than ever before. West’s former use of religious and artful references in aesthetic are still very much so present on Yeezus, however here it’s not as masterfully crafted as before. Ye is sneering here, snapping angrily at his competition and those who still doubt him. Tracks like “I Am A God” are literally drenched in ego and lyrically it’s not really doing much, yet the message behind it is simple yet something to truly behold. In an interview with Zane Lowe, West is quoted as saying:

“…when someone comes up and says something like, ‘I am a god,’ everybody says ‘Who does he think he is?’ I just told you who I thought I was. A god. I just told you. That’s who I think I am. Would it have been better if I had a song that said ‘I am a gangster’ or if I had a song that said ‘I am a pimp.’ All those colors and patinas fit better on a person like me, right? But to say you are a god, especially when you got shipped over to the country that you’re in, and your last name is a slave owner’s. How could you say that? How could you have that mentality?””

But what does it mean to be God? God is a supreme being, one of extreme power. An unstoppable force, someone or something incapable of being topped, stopped or destroyed. It’s the ultimate, the infinite and everlasting. To say your a God…it’s sacrilegious. You, Mr. Kanye West, aren’t supposed to go that far. To place yourself on a pedestal above the white man, above the classism you so harshly look down upon…Who, exactly, do you think you are? To take the place and occupy the image and place of a God or high religious figure…that’s blasphemy. To reach so far up, just to bring the picture and idea of God down to simply one more nigga is sickening. It’s off-base. It’s insidious. It’s putrid. And the fact that this very same nigga is Kanye West; a self obsessed egomaniac, a pretentious asshole and one of the most publicly hated figures of the decade is saying this…it’s unacceptable. While these presentations and instances of West pulverizing the American idea of God down to simply one more of him brings out an expansive exhibit of negative sentiments in us; however how can it make the eternal feel? We know how we feel, but how does the almighty feel in the midst of these declarations? How does the infinite feel in knowing that this has happened and does it care at all? And most importantly of all, is this when Kanye West became too powerful? Yeezus packs its biggest punches in it’s delivery and simple to understand political messages. “Soon as they like you, make em unlike you”.

While West found himself as a restless experimentalist with something to prove to everyone in this broken planet, Kendrick found himself in a more wise and reflective tone on To Pimp A Butterfly. Unlike it’s hotheaded and reactionary younger brother, DAMN., To Pimp A Butterfly is a howling, angry and hot headed work of furious black protest art, rooted in paranoia, pride, fear, and anger. It’s a furiously conceived piece of absolute art that demands listeners to listen and feel the impact of every word he says. It’s an uplifting album, one of serial beauty and brings the listener to a crashing reality by it’s end. His firmly applied comprehension on the inner mechanics of morphology, advanced linguistic structure as well as vocabulary, multicategoriality showing him tackling topics like racism, slavery and societal uproar accentuates TPAB’s occasional yet brilliant vagueness upon the midst of it being a massive musical gathering and it enables him to perform at his absolute best. With his vast comprehension of dialect and and wide range of voices being fully premiered here, scrutinizing the underlying foundations of our personal current social statuses and inciting reconsideration of one’s political stances when it’s all said and done.

Rich in a sonic sense akin to The Roots, OutKast, De La Soul, The Fugees and the like, Dot underlined his deeply layered sentiments with astringent ruminations on fame, emotion and personal character that has never been seen before in Hip-Hop before, period. Groovy, complex and hard as all ever, To Pimp A Butterfly is a perfect encapsulation of black existentialism, a confounding and cacophonous collection of sound and sonic wizardry, an idiosyncratically perfect album in every sense of the word — and the best Hip-Hop album this decade to come since West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It’s brilliantly beautiful and amazingly constructed — a spellbinding experience to say the very least. Which is why DAMN. feels like such a natural continuation of TPAB’s sound to begin with and why Yeezus feels like such an update on what we can consider activism in the 21st century. If To Pimp A Butterfly is wise, wide eyed, and more ponderous in it’s approach before having our main character act upon something, DAMN. is more hefty, swift, breezy, agile and more vindictive in it’s reality. It’s still making searing hot political statements like it’s predecessor did; but this time Kendrick is less hesistant to raise his sword and more ready to draw blood and ask questions later.

If My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was a wide angled, big lensed Hip-Hop Fantasy, complete with Ye playing the role of a grand orchestrator and puppeteering his collaborators to play within his key, Yeezus is more shortsighted and hasty in it’s approach, much like DAMN. Kanye has had enough. Enough of the fame. Enough of the media. Enough of the bloggers. Yeezus fires off like an irate migraine that always pulsates at the back of your head. An unrelenting pounding of sonic territory. Not only are Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West redefining sonic territories time and time again (especially this decade), these three records, DAMN., Yeezus, & To Pimp A Butterfly all serve as genre defying examples of what we can consider activism in the 2010’s.

People have long fought with oppression and their oppressors. We’ve tried reasoning with it, we’ve tried siding with it and acting in it’s vein for our own personal benefit. Hip-Hop is an art form; a brilliantly conceived idea that was played to the max by all it’s participators to make something larger than life. It serves as a shrill and powerful way to cut down barriers to those who wouldn’t want to hear worlds from the lower and poorer classes — it gives a voice to the voiceless and empowers those who are put down the most. Beats penetrate and break down all kinds of barriers, whether they be linguistic, cultural or financial ones. Between the futuristic and electronic buzz of the hypermanic Yeezus, The cacophonous swell of Jazz & G-Funk inspired sounds that take over To Pimp A Butterfly and the current sound of DAMN. all serve as great examples. Each project is linguistically and aesthetically grandiose, with every record excelling where another one simply can’t. But it’s silly to assume political and social activism began in Hip-Hop with Ye & Kendrick. Around 28 years ago, legendary lyricist KRS-One teamed up with a plethora of collaborators to create “Self Destruction”, a militant and deft proclamation of anti-violence statements in African, African American communities and the like.

The proclaimed ‘God MC’ Rakim was genuinely one of the first rappers to advocate for resistance to the first Gulf War, resulting in him releasing the track “Casualties Of War”, a brash yet wise political stance taken on wax akin to nothing any other lyricist has ever done, and he’s even referred to Iraq as “The Unwinnable War”. In “Casualties Of War”, Rakim is quoted as saying:

“A desert storm let’s see who reigns supreme / Something like monopoly / a government scheme / Go to the Army, be all you can be / Another dead soldier? Hell no, not me!”

Rakim’s history of political statements doesn’t end here either, with him later saying:

“For all the families and all the tragedies over there, it’s not worth it, and if you look at the economy, particularly when someone goes to war and they’re so called winning, beating a country that is full of oil, then you come back home and gas is $5 a gallon, you’re losing,” said Rakim, who also weighed in on the current political scene. “I hope my man Barack wins with flying colors and it’s not the color of his skin, it’s his ideas and his points of view — things are going to change, and that’s why everybody is riding with him. Hopefully this can get us as a people on track and wake up the government because what Barack is doing is big,”

In Rakim making searing hot political statements, you simply cannot speak about Political activism in Hip-Hop without mentioning the famed Tupac Shakur —an icon turned socially cognizant worksmith whose political validity and stance remained situated in his melodious and lyrical evaluations of (then) present day bigotry as well as he & his mothers participation within the Black Panther Party. Tracks of his like “Changes” showed 2Pac’s skill and passion for addressing racial and economic disparities within marginalized communities. “Changes” was his pointed meditation and commentary on police brutality, the war on drugs that waged in black communities, and the social injustices that plagued his time. A reflective state of mind shows itself on this track, finding the now deceased lyricist packing a mighty punch.

“The penitentiary’s packed, and it’s filled with blacks.”

Speed further down Hip-Hop’s rapidly expanding timeline and you get the the iconic Lil Wayne, on his classic song “Georgia…Bush”; finding Weezy giving commentary after Hurricane Katrina delivering a blistering blow to then one sided Louisiana and New Orleans commentary:

“Look at the bullshit we been through / Had our niggas sitting on top their roofs / Hurricane Katrina, we should’ve called it Hurricane (Georgia) Bush / Then they telling y’all lies on the news / The white people smiling like everything cool / But I know people that died in that pool / I know people that died in them schools”

Years later, Queensbridge legend Nas, someone who’s never been one to shy away from social commentary himself, delivered “Nas”; his newfound title after his previous title “N*gger” wasn’t accepted. Everyone knew the title “Nas”, sometimes referrer to as “Untitled” was merely a placeholder of a title, something that wasn’t meant to be held there at all — reflective of America’s penchant and uncanny consistency to erase and make attempts to try and hide it’s flaws as opposed to directly addressing them. On “Nas”, the Queensbridge MC turned dark and more politically militant than ever. He made a full charge against America, attacking it’s early mass genocide of Native American’s;

“Assassinations, diplomatic relations / Killed indigenous people built a new nation”

To his love of the black community, finding him declaring “I love y’all; pyramids to cotton fields”. It was a hot bombshell of a record at it’s time, but not the first time Hip-Hop has done it. There are near infinite of Sociopolitical activism in these tracks, ranging from 1988’s riotous “Fuck Tha Police” to 2000’s “A Song For Assata” by Common, a moving tribute and retelling of the trial of lobbyist and Black Panther associate Assata Shakur, one’s who’s case was exceptionally plugged and disputed everywhere; it was broadly trusted and believed that she was a large participant for the homicide of an officer. She later dodged jail & sought Political refuge in Cuba. Common is caught in the track saying:

“I read this sister’s story, knew that it deserved a verse / I wonder what would happen if that would’ve been me? / All of this just so we could be free”

But there’s even more. Lupe Fiasco’s 2011 statement “Words I Never Said”, he reaches outward and to his listeners instead of looking at himself. “I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit” he adds. “Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit.” He snaps. But he saves his hardest lines for later, seeing him add this bomb:

“Jihad is not holy war, where’s that in the worship? / Murdering is not Islam, and you are not observant.”

From Commons “Black America Again”, to Mos Def’s “Mathematics”, and even more presently to YG’s “FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)” and J. Cole’s “High For Hours”, Hip-Hop has always been an inherently political landscape. We rose from the slums, from the bottom of the class pyramid and made something that could never be taken from us. A new form of art. Our art, something that couldn’t be shut down or taken away from us. Something that we owned and we controlled how it was being created and spread. A vast multitude of other blackcentric genres have a history of activism with their artists as well; see Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin On”, or Billie Holidays “Strange Fruit”. Other records that come to mind are John Coltrane’s “Alabama”, Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”, Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus” but most importantly of all, Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”; a genuine 1970’s cultural touchstone of white hot activism, even having it’s title become a part of not only mainstream, but pop culture as well.

The R&B artist’s convivially mindful, mark, and masterful tune set the gregarious arousal of the Civil Rights time against American commercialization and consumerism and flipped it on it’s head, and against something else; pitting one of America’s most proud traits (Consumerism) and one of it’s more impactful times (The Civil Rights Era) in a forward clash of musical intrests. “The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner,” Gil Scott rapped, laying substratum for early Hip-Hop. First discharged as a powerful blast of music in 1970 as a sort of. verbalized, spoken word piece, the late Scott Heron’s most acclaimed and prominently featured track was later revamped as a cadence paced jazz tune including melodic accomplice Brian Jackson’s butterfly-like woodwind and included musical mastery. The tune was not unmistakably activist, yet it made it’s point even more clear.

In the 21st century, the presence of activism hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s simply adapted itself in a new manner. And in the 2010’s, our 2 greatest examples come in the form of Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. But there’s more to examine out of the 3 albums I initially depicted. Didn’t you see it? DAMN. followed up To Pimp A Butterfly, while Yeezus followed up the calculated My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It serves as a bigger example in a larger picture altogether. When he try and attack our oppressors ideologies and not them as people via peaceful and conventional means, were railed against. Kendrick Lamar’s TPAB, despite is vast critical acclaim, was also met with some harsh responses, and the same goes for West’s Dark Fantasy. When we cannot reason with them through conventional ways, we lash out, like the red eyed Yeezus and the reactionary catharsis of DAMN. And if they do not listen to us after all that we’ve done, then we’ll continue the cycle forever. You can only prod the bear with the stick until it retaliates. We no longer have it as a mandatory demand to go out in the streets and protest, were able to do it in the comfort of our own homes and studios. Kendrick Lamar & Kanye West, while remastering what true activism is, are also shining examples of pushing genre boundaries.

We cannot, and will not be ignored.