He goes on to acknowledge his actions aren’t ethical or honourable in the least (“So when you play this song, rewind the first verse/About me abusing my power so you can hurt”).
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In this twisted, perverse interpersonal conflict, Lamar sees his sexual pursuit as an act of vengeance – but he doesn’t stop there. In Butterfly’s fifth track, These Walls, Lamar grapples with this exact struggle: He describes having sex with a woman who has children with a man who killed one of Lamar’s friends. His inner conflict with the morality of revenge prompted me to think about questions like: Is revenge ever a noble and just cause? How does one punish a criminal? And who should do the punishing? Hamlet desperately wanted to murder his uncle, Claudius, in retaliation for allegedly killing his father. My first memory of being pointedly confronted with the concept of moral complexity was in my Grade 12 AP literature class, reading Hamlet. But over the course of the past five years, I’ve come to see Butterfly more as a dramatic play than a musical composition because of its timeless moral complexity and honest examination of both self and society. But beyond the aesthetics and surface-level meanings, To Pimp a Butterfly was nothing more than enjoyable music for me at the time.Īnd the music of Butterfly is spectacular I love hard-hitting, vibrant songs like King Kunta and Wesley’s Theory. I also recall taking inspiration from Lamar’s theatrical performance in For Free? while preparing my year-end solo dramatic monologue. Tizzard’s ninth-grade English class and vaguely connecting its themes of racism and prejudice to powerful, race-conscious tracks on Lamar’s album, like Complexion (A Zulu Love) and Alright.
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I remember studying the novel In the Heat of The Night by John Ball in Mrs. I first listened to To Pimp a Butterfly when it was released in 2015, when I was 14. As I’ve undergone this evolution, one thing has progressed in tandem with my self-development: my comprehension and appreciation of Kendrick Lamar’s universally acclaimed rap album To Pimp a Butterfly. In the process, I’ve slowly transitioned from a kid with a sheltered world view to an adult who’s endlessly interested in issues surrounding race and culture. I finished high school and became a freelance writer as well as a content developer at an award-winning organization called Rhymes with Reason, which uses rap music to teach vocabulary and literacy to young students.
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The last five years of my life have been pivotal for me, a 19-year-old living in Chilliwack, B.C.