“I Remember You Was Conflicted”: Reinterpreting Kendrick Lamar’s <i>To Pimp a Butterfly<i>

Abstract

In discussing art of subjugated cultures, specifically African American music, the individual and their cultural context are often wrongly separated. This has cultivated a divide in which personal exploration through music has been decoupled from the artist’s greater comments on their cultural struggle. This essay aims to pursue a methodology centred on the relationship between the personal and the cultural, with a case study of Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly. Lamar straddles this divide. It is through examining the relationship between himself and his community and context that Lamar gives authenticity to his voice, despite its fallibility. Although the album received critical acclaim, it was met with responses that segregated the passages of self- reflexivity from statements on race and society. Consequently, the nuance of Lamar’s voice was largely lost. Adopting, instead, what I label an “inter-relational” methodology highlights previously unobserved areas of Lamar’s work, and may similarly provide new perceptions when applied across the rap genre and beyond. This essay will first examine prevailing, polarised methodologies of examining art of oppressed people, and rap in particular. Next, it will look at the inherent flaws in taking entirely one approach. Finally, applying a central, inter-relational methodology, it shall examine To Pimp a Butterfly, ultimately finding a more nuanced interpretation of the text that illuminates aspects that, as of yet, have remained unexamined – namely, Lamar’s wrestle with the fallibility of his own voice against his wider call for African American unity. Subsequently, the conclusion is drawn that a methodology that does not just look at the personal and the cultural, but their inherent relationship with one another, is invaluable to understanding Lamar’s work, and likely other works within the rap genre.