The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America

by Marcus J. Moore

For a naturally quiet being like Kendrick, writing poetry gave him the space to reveal his innermost thoughts without judgment from others. Prowess came in silence.

Macklemore seemed to appropriate not just a genre but black culture itself, using its music to peddle safe messages to a mostly white audience. Yet in 2005, the lyricist had released a song called “White Privilege,” in which he openly questioned his own existence in hip-hop.

Hip-hop was a way to document the trauma of racism and celebrate the unparalleled fortitude of blackness.

Through hip-hop, black people were able to synthesize hardship into radiant poetry, and for Kendrick, the culture allowed room to wrestle with the yin and yang of life as a young black man in modern America.

Kendrick’s mind-set going into the record: he was saying what needed to be said, boldly and without fear. It was about making people uncomfortable, to change the discourse surrounding black trauma, depression, and racism. “We were excited when those brothers were protesting, and the police were there, and all you heard in the background was ‘We gon’ be alright!’ ”