In Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning, readers have encountered a diversity of chapters struggling to make sense of the varied meanings in the work of Kendrick Lamar. Whether attention to the cultural contexts and products out of which Lamar creates, or to each and every word that he spits, throughout this volume readers will quickly recognize that Lamar is all of us. Put differently, Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning is in and of itself a product of creating black meaning, of kenosis, as such. A word emanating from Christian theology, kenosis is “the ‘self-emptying’ of Jesus’ own will and becoming entirely receptive to God’s divine will. The word έκένωσεν is used in Philippians 2:7, “[Jesus] made himself nothing” or “[he] emptied himself,” using the verb form κενόω “to empty.” Here, each author astutely both empties and refills Lamar’s cup of black meaning-making Lamar mean so many different things to all of us. Whether it is talk of race, religion, economics, biology, social movements, and so on, throughout the pages of the book you hold, our contributors have constructed the most pressing and vital aspects of both meaning and blackness using the canvas and lyrical tapestry of Lamar’s artistic corpus’ and journey. This act speaks much about Lamar’s dexterity, his range, and genius, offering a word that is able to mean so many different things about both blackness and religion, that at times readers will see Lamar for what he is on his own, and in other moments, readers will encounter the dogged desire of a public thirst so penchant to ensure Lamar remains at the center of black meaning itself.
The curious aspect to Lamar’s wisdom is that he rarely explicitly discusses the two signifiers holding together this volume: race and religion. Rather, Lamar both begins and ends with himself as he bears witness to his own struggles with a range of timeless issues that are both deeply personal and individual: survivor’s guilt, poverty, crime, police brutality, death, family, depression, self-love, self-hate, and so on. As such, readers and listeners can see themselves in Lamar’s work, identifying with his own struggle to making meaning in his black body as he takes fans on a journey through the limits and possibilities of each stage of his life and career.
For example, on his track “u,” Lamar discusses depression and his own struggle with suicidal thoughts. From “previous experiences” to his work on Good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Lamar gives indication that “there was nothing more vulnerable,” that the meaning of this song lies in one word: Change.1 Something that Lamar says “man” struggles with the most. Here, we get a sense that on each track of Lamar’s work, he sees himself as creating and crafting stories about himself, that each album builds on various points of significance in his life that read as chapters in a book of poetry of life. It was on the tour bus, Lamar says, that survivor’s guilt begins to haunt as he thought about his family, and Compton community “back home.”2 Guilt, something so many of Lamar’s listeners can identify with, guilt for making it, for having arrived at a place that so many of Lamar’s homies did not. And, herein lies the brilliance of Lamar’s kenosis, that he undoes the hip-hop braggadocious way of life, and one-ups, trading the dozens in for public discussion of a feeling we have all felt. In this way, Lamar is most of us, if not all of us. As Lamar riffs on his almost obsessive worry about those he loves the most, about not physically being able to be “where” the shit is going down, where “real nigga conditions” live, we are provided a portrait of a black Jesus who is in the world, and at once, empties himself to not be of it. With the people one day, and yet the next day gone off to a place of arrival at the right hand of the industry of his craft. In a word, Lamar is torn and twisted about his success to the extent he works not as much to make black meaning but to undo the black meaning that has arrived in his own corporeal reality. Wherever he finds himself, Lamar worries, perpetually and compulsively to the extent that the work he produces is an act of therapy, of cognitive and behavioral exposures to success that he is, and yet, not ready to accept that he cannot be all of us in his status of arrival. As such, we see a Lamar who is black and fragile, who struggles to remain relevant not as much to black meaning, but rather to the black bodies that mean so much to him: his homies, his family, his neighborhood.
Continuing his psychological concerns, Lamar worries much about maintaining sanity and perspective, and not giving over to “losing it” which he says so many artists have done. Here, Lamar projects concern regarding his own walk, attempting to remain true and steadfast to pacing himself, and yet not getting so far ahead of himself that he no longer is or finds connection to the very things that helped make the Lamar we so love today: the hood and all of its social problems. Albums, for Lamar, are about making ways for him to heal, or as he calls it, “release therapy,” which greatly impacts why Lamar does what he does.
One could go as far to say that Lamar’s struggle with black meaning, or his dogged desire to maintain black meaning in an inner-world where he struggles with meaning at each stage of his career, is about maintaining focus and perspective, about not losing sight of what has mattered to Lamar so much that without which there would be no meaning to whom we affectionately call K.Dot. How Lamar decides and chooses to ‘pimp’ his music and celebrity, determines his walk of leadership for those that he cares about the most. Lamar deftly understands the impact of his work on the ears of his many listeners, that there can be both a positive and negative effect. Lamar worries much about effect, and as such, attempts to control his own black affect as being primarily responsible for what we do with his work, and with Kendrick Lamar himself. In this way, Lamar is determined to control all aspects of black meaning, not as much hermeneutically speaking, but rather, in an ontological sense. Put otherwise, Lamar desperately wants one thing: for his work to mean.
From “u” to “i” Lamar is interested in painting and portraying the lyrical journey of what it looks like from the depths of black hell to the pinnacle of black meaning. From going from a point of deep depression, and having suicidal thoughts, to boldly declaring that he “loves” himself, even if he did not feel that way, speaks to Lamar’s yearning to maintain meaning in the darkest and brightest aspects of his life. In a brief word, the meaning of Lamar’s black production is highly and deeply therapeutic. And if the world can gain something from his personal testament of struggling with meaning in his own black body, then Lamar is happy for his work to mean so many different things to so many different people: so long as that meaning is affirmative and possesses potential for upright leadership and vision.
From a “Compton caterpillar” to the “black butterfly”, now equipped to fly high and away from all that has contributed significance to the making of Lamar, survivor’s guilt looms large in Lamar’s lyrical compositions. From here, Lamar transmutes this concern into a riff on the ‘how’ of black meaning, how he can use his influence and significance for the city, in the cities around the world institutionalized by a lack of meaning, meaning very little to the larger geographies in which they find themselves. From the pits of his most vulnerable experiences in Compton, and his struggle to accept change, most importantly his own, such a perspective heard across his albums comes from previous life experiences. Lamar is a control freak; he worries about not being there to ‘fix’ things in his community. And it is here where he then looks to the hands of ‘God’ as a place where he can cast this worry as he tours the world. Not like Lamar thinks he is God, but he most definitely espouses a sense that he is a carpenter of sorts who can fix things when they are broken so long as his black body is where it is needed the most: in the streets. Thus, the studio, the tour bus, the travel away from the city is where Lamar makes the most brilliant jewels of his black meaning, when he says he “feels the most.” Lamar wants so much to arrive and grow into his celebrity status, and yet, is riddled with the invasive fear of the madness from home. When overseas, for example, Lamar talks about how he has got to get offstage to “face the madness” of home – who has died?; who has become pregnant (such as his sister)?; who does he have to bury and what funerals does he have to prepare for when he gets home from being on tour? As Lamar attests, his act of constructing black meaning on the page is indeed his release therapy for those things that psychologically ‘mess’ with his brain as he shuttles between the tour bus and funeral parlors. Lamar articulates his struggle to face the madness, especially that summer where three of his homeboys were murdered, all of which psychologically “messes your brain up” between this life, and between tours and funerals. Lamar is an alchemist as he ponders again the “how” – how can he use his voice?; his influence?; his capital?; his significance to both save and reach the masses? He doesn’t as much articulate what they’ll be saved from; but rather, sees his own sacrificial story as one that can be transmuted into so many different things. Lamar specializes in alchemy, in making his blackness and his non-meaning mean so much to so many different people around the world. Adding to this, Lamar is a perfectionist. Given the range of his influence, he sees other people’s mistakes as his own, as him having failed his hermeneutical mandate of maintaining meaning for himself and others. This is where Lamar constantly puts so much pressure on himself.
Despite being taken up as an anthem for Black Lives Matter, “Alright” is a deeply personal song to Kendrick, a signpost in his realization that he needed to choose life. And, this realization comes on the mode of travel, says Lamar. The more he travels, the more he realizes that the world is full of problems, that there are indeed people struggling more than he does or has. It is in the interstices of this sort of revelation where Lamar finds his black meaning to be the most productive. He has said that it was in South Africa where he saw folk struggling ten times harder than himself, and also the place where he productively wrote a lot (producing quite a few records while there).3 In Lamar’s words, he says that he could either fall victim to the situation or pimp it. He obviously chose the latter. But one would see this as the opposite of Black Lives Matter, a serious situation not meant to be pimped; but rather, a reality of a perpetual condition where black matter has been over-pimped to the point of death. And, herein lies the paradox of Lamar’s work and the making of black meaning in it – we often place Lamar and his words in competing contexts of black difference and meaning. Kendrick thinks lots about others: “What if that was the moment,” where that which presents itself as mortal, one of us, could be a spirit, or an angel? What if that is the moment that attempts to test our integrity? And, here Kendrick attempts to become one of us, where he contemplates the homeless and the hungry, and whether they need not so much a “dolla,” but rather, conversation and dialogue. The cost of black meaning then is both inexpensive and yet just as costly as black death. Evidence of being in the world, of looking at one of the least of these, finds Kendrick himself ignoring the panhandler, worried more about whether this person will take his money and engage in activities that have killed those that Lamar worries about the most: black folk. But rather than engage in the what-ifs, Lamar chooses to enter into the world and engage in kenosis. He empties himself so that he can fill up another. And, in that vulnerable moment of engagement is when religion begins to work its magic for Lamar – when the bum says “God Bless You, Thank you. This is your calling.” That moment Lamar says “blew his mind” and “trips” him out, making him think of those deep moments in his life, the moments of integrity, that him talking to this stranger was God speaking through him, sharing with the world.4 In alchemical fashion again, Lamar speaks of God speaking through Lamar’s being, and yet, at the same time, on the same album, speaks to ‘Lucy’ or Lucifer. How does Lamar do both at the same time? How can he see both sides of black meaning and black death? He says that both the evils and positive energies speak to him, that he can be in one moment so earnestly focused on the affirmative and yet think further about that manner in which he is deeply tempted by the gravitational pull that comes with celebrity life. In this way, such a pull is felt across this volume, where Lamar brings both life and the confounding sense of inexplicability. This is the gift, as he becomes a voice for those that cannot yet express. Lucy, he says, is one of his favorites as he is forced to come to terms with, and confront, evil. Not as much the evil of the world, but rather, the evil of his own thoughts. Kendrick allows himself to be used by God, for God to speak through him while also speaking with the Devil in the same instance. Fame, fortune, loss, temptations, evil – these are but just some of the existential struggles that we hear emanating from the lyrics of Lamar. And, these things, says Lamar, can still influence. Kendrick is all of us, and, that is what Lamar does so brilliantly throughout his work; by starting with the “i” he gets to the “u.”
Lamar’s religious work can be summed up through the metaphor of pimping butterflies, which for Lamar is a spiritual process – that is, it must be connected to the music. Grabbing at conversations and experiences, finds Lamar pulling that energy back out to make meaning. Concept is an important aspect of Lamar’s work. Speaking of concepts, as mentioned in this volume, TPAB was originally titled Tu Pimp a Caterpillar (TUPAC), but in the end, the abbreviation spelled out TUPAC (so they decided to change it). The butterfly represents the butterflies of life, and pimp represents aggression and using celebrity for good and not being pimped by the industry. And, in typical Lamar-like fashion, much of what Kendrick gives us in his most recent work is about having escaped the dangers and pangs of the world, but also, the limits of formal institutions such as schooling as proxy for institutions more generally. And that this work here is a work of capturing the intellectual domains of Lamar’s work, within the formal aspects of academic publishing is an unintended irony. Seeing beyond the mundane everyday curricular aspects of education, Lamar gestures that nothing as of yet has prepared him for the capital and excess of meaning – both metaphorically and monetarily – that he would end up encountering in his success.
One might ask, how did Lamar in fact learn how to do what he does? How not to act a fool once signed, or how not to forget where he came from? And, this is where Lamar gets religious and spiritual in his response, saying that he did not learn this from the “likes of man” but rather, the “likes of God.” In this way, Lamar connotes a kind of meaning whose inner-workings and capacity are not only impenetrable, but also up for grabs. Again, his process of making meaning is deeply personal, and most often involves talk of both spiritual and godly connection and influence. Hailed as the “What’s Going On” of this era, To Pimp a Butterfly was an album of personal testament used as proxy for a more external and social protest. From black death to black life, this album is not as much about escape, as it is about the inescapability of black self. Put crassly, here, real nigga conditions are permanent for Lamar on his third studio album, released during the height of Black Lives Matter, the racial trouping of meaning looms large. Earning Lamar eleven Grammy nominations, in the three years since Good kid m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly takes the listener through the diversity of black meanings. From a backdrop of soul, to jazz, including the posthumous technological resurrection of Tupac Shakur, Lamar uses his self as canvas to explore a wide variety of issues such as depression, violence, love, hate, death, life, celebration of self, and politics. Here, Lamar draws heavily from the concepts of black meaning – from Nelson Mandela, to African and American culture, to slave ships, Kunta Kinte, and hieroglyphs, Lamar is deeply himself as both “i” and “The Blacker the Berry.” Here, Kendrick the rap artist is transmuted into Kendrick the poet, telling and weaving stories as he occupies various roles and personalities at once. If “Every Nigger Is a Star” then it is no wonder that the authors comprising this volume can see a little piece of black meaning in almost every fabric of Lamar’s craft and output. Escaping, but for just a moment, his survivor’s guilt, Lamar on this world-acclaimed album goes from a Compton ‘nigga’ and grows into being a ‘prince’ and then a ‘king.’ As such, King Kendrick lets loose enough to enjoy, even if briefly, his successful arrival at black fame.
And, just as “i” and “Alright” became Black Lives Matters’ most palpable lyrical signposts for a new era of black protest, an honest Lamar gives the world “Institutionalized” and “These Walls” wherein he speaks honestly about his temptations concerning women, and money. In an era of “Me Too” – one cannot help but to appreciate Lamar’s honesty about the manner in which he is “institutionalized” insomuch as he finds himself “runnin’ back for a visit.” Trapped in a cocoon, we can see our own limits of success within the traditional walls of academia and worlds of journalism that have not nearly trained us to come to terms with the kind of meaning made by a black and very complicated Lamar. So here, Lamar becomes the canvas, and we the listeners, and fans, construct our own meaning of Lamar onto Lamar himself. In some chapters, Lamar is constructed as way more Christian than what he has ever attested to be, in others, he is the savior of hip-hop and the black world, and yet, in other pages throughout, Lamar is a black Hebrew Israelite who proclaims that race doesn’t matter anymore, allowing us a peak into familial riffs and feuds and an embrace of black DNA that means no more than the grave of a recursive “Dead Nigga Association.” Unlike so many others exposed throughout the ongoing #MeToo movement, Lamar confesses to abusing his power and influence. Kendrick tells his story in a way that leaves no untwisted part unattested. This is how the baby momma of a gangbanger becomes the man who kills his homie from back on Good kid m.A.A.d city, and also a woman with whom Lamar has had sexual relations. As listeners are taken aback by the screams on “loving you is complicated” we are back into the pits of Kendrick’s depression on “u,” where loathing and regret fill and trap’s Lamar in the cocoon of black life.
Throughout Lamar’s work, the process of making meaning is found not only in himself, but also, in others that matter the most for (and to) him. And, while some might find blasphemous the sentiment that Lamar is a black savior to the world, and hip-hop, Lamar spits that he wants to be his own mother’s advocate, he wants to preach for her, only if she’d tell him what is wrong. In this way, Lamar, like God, has a way of making the world feel as if he is talking directly to and through us, desiring so deeply to speak in tongues for his many listeners and fans around the world. Again, although Lamar was very much lifted up as the protest-anthem-maker of the Black Lives Matter movement, we tend to make Lamar blacker, in a political sense, than what he might consider himself to be. In fact, Lamar is stuck in the hypocrisy of black death, questioning why he wept when Trayvon Martin was killed in the streets and yet gangbanging could find him, at any time, kill “a nigga blacker than me.” In 2015, Lamar took heat from many in the Black Lives Matter for his comments on Ferguson in a Billboard interview where he stated,
Artist Azelia Banks clapped back saying Lamar ought to speak for “his fucking self,” and that his remarks were “The dumbest shit I’ve ever heard a black man say.”6 With so much talk of the institutionalizing aspects of the game, and life, one would think that Lamar would bring a more sound, structural, social, and generational analysis to his thinking here. These are not the kinds of words one would expect from the lyrical spokesperson of Black Lives Matter.
Perhaps, it is kenosis that on one hand Lamar can so deeply pierce the black soul, and yet, spark a debate over the antidote to black death. And yet throughout many of these pages of the book you hold, and throughout much of the public commentary on Lamar, we have made (his) blackness mean so much.
Whereas Lamar begs for the listener’s construction, or their “what is your perspective on that?” – it is clear that throughout Lamar’s work, such as To Pimp a Butterfly, he is asking for disciples to follow his K.dots of meaning, “generation X, will I ever be your X?”7 And, just like that, such a black question leads us right into the pits of damnation where Lamar flirts with his widest and most competing aspects of black meaning to date. Calling DAMN. a piece of art, he just now wants to “give it to the people” and “see your reaction.” It is most precisely the live performance where Lamar gets to see that the most, rather than online or in fans’ comments about the songs. DAMN. has offered an opportunity to not as much construct black meaning, but rather, to pull it apart and deconstruct the meaning made. Rather than focus on the looming dangers of black death, or failure, Lamar here focuses on the kenosis of a timeless production, ensuring that what he produces has an opportunity to “live on” for some time. The kind of recursive and reiterative breaking down of black meaning that Lamar invites his listeners to engage in is in line with what Lamar had in mind. In fact, he mentions wanting his fans to listen to the album, over and over, to be able to capture the many messages and meanings woven throughout the album. Giving the public very little to work from, DAMN. is a gnostic-like work that is as contradictory as it is esoteric. Here, Lamar “bends, twists, breaks, and turns words”8 and bending and manipulating them which he says shows one’s “true craft” – part skill, and part turning back again inward, DAMN. is as much a work of confession as it is a grand work of skill. There is here no overarching idea that holds the album together. Reading more like a lyrical bible, rather than album, DAMN. boasts brief, broad, and pithy one-word titles that offer little clue into what Lamar has in mind. Perhaps, this is why we make so much of it. The album looks like the human condition – womb to tomb or tomb to womb, depending on the order played.
And yet he boasts that he is the greatest rapper alive, given just how passionate he is about the craft. He is, he says, a listener, and loves hip-hop beyond what words can describe. In paradoxical fashion, Lamar looks beyond the acuity of skill as a hallmark of what constitutes the best, which for him is more of a drive and affirmation than an actual bar of meaning-making. Crowns and pedestals meet up with blood and DNA, an imbalance that might be more representative of Lamar’s state of being.
From begging God to proclaiming black folk are cursed, the most promising and damning aspects of religion and race are most presciently highlighted throughout DAMN, released on Good Friday no less. Close friend and Black Hippy collaborator Ab-Soul remarked that he believed the purpose of DAMN. was for Kendrick to get beyond the Kendrick Lamar that he has been for a while, a Lamar that is “the good kid, he’s the more introspective kid” saying that DAMN. is Lamar’s attempt to “get back to K.Dot, get back to his roots, sag his pants, really roll through the hood for this album.”9 With all fourteen tracks appearing on the Billboard 100, and the first non-jazz and non-classical artist to win a Pulitzer for his work on the album, one mysteriously wonders what kind of black meaning was heard, constructed, and made by the listening public. As for the Pulitzer, they described the album as, “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”10 DAMN. is very much about damnation, consequences, and self-preservation. In interviews, Lamar articulates how To Pimp a Butterfly is representative of an idea of a changing world, and our approach to it. While DAMN. is more of a statement articulating his inability to change the world until he can change himself. If anything, DAMN. is a mirror that Lamar holds up to Lamar’s self. A work of self-construction, autopoiesis, while allowing others a peek inside of that process. Lamar wants the listener to “grab something” as to best carry out one’s potential. Lamar almost provides a to-do list for his listeners: sit, listen, feel, sit with the beats, live with it, reach a point beyond the confines of time. For Lamar, inspiration might come in two minutes or two months. Unlike his other pieces of work, Lamar seems most introspective and gnostic regarding “telling you without telling you” about what this album means for him. Lamar says it best when he sums up the meaning of this work as a “new life.”11 It might be the case that DAMN. represents Lamar’s most secretive album, hesitating at offering additional insight into the “meaning” of each track, rather offering a broad sweep of what the album means to him: recognizing the world around him, his lifestyle, and coming to grips with the idea of knowing who Kendrick is. Lamar believes that God uses him as a vessel to share stories, without sugarcoating that reality. Words are transmuted into time, space, and ideas about those things Lamar feels are “beyond him.”
Catching up to Lamar’s artistic output since the arrival of DAMN., in February of 2018, the world of popular culture was rocked by the groundbreaking success of Marvel Studio’s Black Panther. After six months in theaters around the world, the film grossed over 1.3 billion dollars.12 In the United States, it was the highest grossing film of 2018 and as of this writing, Black Panther is in company with 2009’s Avatar and 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the top three highest grossing films of all time.13 The success of Black Panther exceeds its financial impact, in that the film seemed to take on qualities larger than any one actor or artist associated with the film. For many – particularly African Americans and others in the African diaspora – the film was a forceful insertion of black culture into the Marvel Universe, an important intervention due to the overwhelming impact of the Marvel comic franchise to contemporary popular culture. But the film also seemingly transcended pop culture, as well, speaking to fears associated with rising tides of nativism and xenophobia, while programmatically destabilizing racist assumptions that black casts, black art, black culture, and black meaning were lesser or provincial expressions of culture, writ large. Black Panther, to this extent, belongs to all of us – black, white, Asian, Indian, etc. – but it is oh so black. It is black meaning; its meaning is blackness.
With such a vision in mind, when it came time for the film’s soundtrack to be produced, the film’s director, Ryan Coogler, turned to the inimitable Kendrick Lamar. On February 9, 2018, Lamar released his curated Black Panther: The Album (Top Dawg Entertainment). Coogler initially asked Lamar if he would contribute a few songs to a soundtrack. Upon viewing an early cut of the film, Lamar was so moved that he offered to curate and produce an entire album.14 Many artists contributed to the project, with Lamar serving as producer. Many have called the album “pan-African,” and the diversity of artists who contributed to the project is matched with a decidedly “African” sensibility including heavy tribal drum use, repetition, and call-and-response techniques. The result is an album marked with Lamar’s unique genius, while it is also a testament to black diversity – regional, cultural, aesthetic, etc.
Lamar testifies that he sits and thinks all day about his work, with about eighty percent being prep work, concerned with truth and impact. Connection is an important theme for what Lamar wants his listeners to take with them, wanting them to “feel” what he is “feeling” in the moment. In this way, Lamar asks his listeners to focus on self, and K.Dot the landscape and geography of his work. And, that is exactly what the authors have done throughout the tracks on this disc, in the chapters of this book you hold. May you see yourself in how we have seen ourselves (and work) in the work and craft of Kendrick Lamar.