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How Kendrick Lamar Went From BLM Symbol to Super Bowl Star
The enthusiastic response to his music has been driven in part by the perception that he’s a political vessel. But what exactly are his politics?
As far as the powers that be, President Obama made it clear that he didn’t take TPAB ’sincendiary White House–takeover album cover personally when he invited Kendrick to perform at his Fourth of July party, held on the same week that Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by cops. Many observers agreed that the rapper’s cryptic nods to Pan-Africanism — a 2014 trip to South Africa had “inspired” him to view the world as “bigger than Compton,” he explained — and the ills of the prison-industrial complex suggested an artist who was deeply attuned to the political crises du jour. On “Family Matters,” Drake claimed that his adversary was “always rapping like you ‘bout to get the slaves freed / You just acting like [an] activist, it’s make believe.” Kendrick retorted on “ Not Like Us,” “You run to Atlanta when you need a few dollars / No, you not a colleague, you a fuckin’ colonizer.” Neither seemed interested in applying these critiques to actual political events, whether it was the presidential race or the U.S.-sponsored carnage in Gaza.
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