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SONGS OF FREEDOM
Songs of Freedom — “i” (2015)
Kendrick Lamar’s affirmation of liberation
One of the most fundamental misunderstandings of hip-hop is conflating the outsized braggadocio integral to the culture’s art forms with shallow vanity. Beneath the boasts of microphone mastery, transcendent style, and aspirational wealth lies a steadfast refusal to be ignored, erased, or misrepresented.
That it is most often delivered by the precise communities American systems have spent centuries relegating to the margins has made resistance to their assertions of self particularly hostile. To institutional gatekeepers, it doesn’t merely register as bravado. It lands as rank insubordination.
But one man’s insubordination is another’s empowerment. In 2014, Kendrick Lamar used his suddenly massive platform to drag that subtext center stage with the lead single from his now iconic sophomore album, To Pimp a Butterfly.
With its crisp, sunny recreation of The Isley Brothers’ “That Lady” and an exuberant hook — Kendrick proclaiming “I love myself” — the single felt like a simple feel-good anthem; a lighthearted victory lap from the man who was sitting atop the world after the breakout success of 2011’s good kid, mA.A.d city. For the hotly anticipated return of hip-hop’s brightest new star, the…
