Creating Gives You the Power to “Levitate”
By: Connor, Bearcat
Tags: Twenty One Pilots, Kendrick Lamar, Creativity, Culture, Music

Creating Gives You the Power to “Levitate”

Just ask Kendrick Lamar or Twenty One Pilots

Two very different musicians can agree on one thing: creating is a feeling unlike any other. Both Kendrick Lamar and Twenty One Pilots explore this concept in their songs “untitled 07 | levitate” and “Levitate”, respectively, as they compare making music to levitating.

Kendrick Lamar starts off his song from the Untitled Unmastered compilation album explaining the unique results from creating:

Love won’t get you high as this

Drugs won’t get you high as this

Fame won’t get you high as this

Chains won’t get you high as this

Juice won’t get you high as this

Crew won’t get you high as this

Hate won’t get you high as this

Levitate, levitate, levitate, levitate

Strong emotions, drugs, material possessions, and even being with other people cannot replicate the happiness that comes from making a work of art like Kendrick did with his previous album To Pimp A Butterfly. He continues in the next verse:

Life won’t get you high like this here, no

He won’t get you high like this here, no

She won’t get you high like this here, no

“For Free?” won’t get you high like this here, no

Two keys won’t get you high, no, no, no

Bentleys won’t get you high, like, no

Levitate, levitate, levitate, levitate

Nothing can make one “levitate” like creating. Kendrick Lamar states that we need to work for our own elation; life itself or relationships won’t solely make us happy. It takes a lot for this, though, as Kendrick later states: “You be in your feelings, I be in my bag . . . everything I’m working, gotta be the gas.” He’s in his zone, working diligently to make the “gas,” the best. This gives him perhaps the greatest feeling he’s had.

Kendrick Lamar in the music video for “Alright”: Source

Tyler Joseph, the songwriter for Twenty One Pilots, also dives into this levitation in the song “Levitate” from the band’s new album, Trench:

Oh, I know how to levitate up off my feet

And ever since the seventh grade I learned to fire-breathe

And though I feed on things that fell

You can learn to levitate with just a little help

Learn to levitate with just a little help

Joseph discusses how writing helps him feel higher. He’s been “levitating” since he was in grade school as “fire-breathe” is a metaphor for singing and rapping; this is his weapon as he’s alluded to previously in the song “Ode to Sleep”: “Take this weapon, forged in darkness / Some see a pen, I see a harpoon.” He views writing as a weapon or harpoon to save him from bad times, which is also why he says he feeds, or writes, “on things that fell,” negative or lower thoughts.

Nevertheless, by tackling these bad times through writing, Tyler Joseph can levitate/lift himself up. Further, he states that we can do the same thing with help — both from him/his lessons and from other friends/supporters. Writing purposeful, beautiful things and working excessively on the craft can give us the power of levitation. We can give ourselves a new, incomparable feeling of success and happiness by creating.

Twenty One Pilots in their Blurryface Tour: Source

Making new things can’t always be easy, though. Tyler Joseph has also given a bunch of insight into the difficulty of creating which I’ve dissected in this article:

Kendrick Lamar and Twenty One Pilots give their audience a similarly overjoyed sensation through their influential creation. They educate and inspire fans, which already empowers them, to try creating to levitate.

An idea in Eminem’s “Rap God” further advances the infectious levitating concept: “I’m devastating, more than ever demonstrating / How to give a motherfuckin’ audience a feeling like it’s levitating.” There’s no doubt that Kendrick Lamar and Twenty One Pilots fulfill this for their listeners as they are two of the only three groups to have an entire album have at least all songs be RIAA certified gold. They were actually the first two to historically accomplish this feat.

Two incredibly successful music groups understand the power of creating, so intoxicating that they can levitate from it. They communicate that creation (no matter through writing, music, or art) gives the most elated feeling.