It’s unafraid to bring up the vices of its author (namely, materialism)-“Painkillers only put me in the twilight/ Where pretty pussy and Benjamin is the highlight”-but stresses that those only make him human. It’s blunt and fed up: “We hate po’ po’/ Wanna kill us dead in the streets fo’ sho’.” Like the rest of To Pimp a Butterfly, it is completely, unapologetically black, with all the complexity that implies. For now it’s clear that “Alright” is the absolute perfect song for this moment, in the way that Nina Simone’s “ Mississippi Goddam,” James Brown’s “ Say It Loud-I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and Public Enemy’s “ Fight the Power” all captured their eras. Whether “Alright” can truly become the next “Lift Every Voice and Sing” or “We Shall Overcome” depends, that is, not just on whether it continues to appear at protests but on whether those protests can help yield real progress for the movement-giving even greater weight to the song’s promise that we’ll push on through. Photo by Simon Laessoee/Scanpix via Reuters. Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. The song, for those protesters, seems both a way to be defiant and proud in the face of those who don’t see you as anything more than a “race-baiter” or a “thug”-and a way to mark the moments when protest seems to make a difference. What the viral clip of the Cleveland protesters doesn’t make clear is that, according to ABC 5 Cleveland, the chanting of “Alright” came after the boy was treated by emergency medical technicians and then released to family members, instead of being taken to the police precinct-what some at the scene considered a small victory. Demonstrators gathered around the scene, locked arms, and were pepper sprayed by police. It’s worth looking at the context in which those Black Lives Matter protesters were chanting “Alright.” The activists had convened for a conference in Cleveland when an allegedly drunk 14-year-old boy was arrested outside the venue and allegedly roughed up by police. The Lord will see us through, The Lord will see us through, “We Shall Overcome,” which in its early incarnation had slightly different lyrics (and the title “I’ll Be All Right”), is likewise optimistic:
#ANALYSIS OF ALRIGHT BY KENDRICK LAMAR FULL#
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,įacing the rising sun of our new day begun, The album cover sports a 3-year-old Kendrick Lamar surrounded by drugs and alcohol with what seems to be his family. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, At the end of 2012, Kendrick Lamar released his highly anticipated album The Good Kid, M.A.A.D City that featured a childhood polaroid photo in a natural setting where he grew up Compton.
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