Kendrick Lamar : The Hypocrite

A day after winning a Grammy for his light-hearted single “I”, Kendrick Lamar released a much darker track titled “The Blacker the Berry”.  While “I” was a track that inspiring self-love, “The Blacker the Berry” comes off as Kendrick providing social commentary on all the recent race based issues in America.

He starts each verse calling himself a hypocrite.  In the first verse, he portrays the African-American angry at white America.  Angry to the point that he doesn’t even want what he sees as fake friendship.  Basically, he’s black and he’s proud.

The second verse is about institutionalized racism and how he was destined to fail due to his color.  He was given a talent that allowed him to overcome those obstacles and has become successful.  The third verse is where things get interesting.

Once again he calls himself a hypocrite, however this time he begins to explain.  In the previous verses he showed his anger towards white America.  In this verse he turns his focus towards his own people, and himself.

He’s calling himself a hypocrite because he’s guilty of a lot of the same things he accuses his oppressor of doing.  He’s just as violent towards his own people as the people he cursed in the previous verses.  He’s just a jealous as they are.  He’s just as deceitful as they are.  He’s not just talking about himself either, he’s talking about us.  African-American’s as a whole.

                What Kendrick is saying is this: While we may be justified in having disdain towards white America for various reasons, we aren’t making things any easier by also having disdain towards each other.

If you haven’t heard it already, you can find the song below. While everyone has their right to agree or disagree with the message, I’d like to believe we can all appreciate the art.

You can find lyrics here