That included New Jersey teacher Brian Mooney, who in 2015 dropped everything to teach a course on To Pimp a Butterfly. He had been teaching an English course based on Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye, but when he heard Kendrick’s opus, he thought the rapper’s work could connect with more students. “There was a lot going on in the world,” Mooney says. “And to think what that meant for teachers in the classroom with urban youth, how we were unpacking that with a lot of kids who are living through very real traumas. The things that they have to deal with—whether it’s violence in their communities, or poverty, or an addicted parent, or gun violence. Kendrick is addressing a lot of that stuff, through talking about mental illness and his own battles with his own demons.” In class, Mooney and his students analyzed many of the album’s songs and spent an entire class period looking at the cover. “I remember how incredible that was,” Mooney exclaims. “The kids were so engaged. We had a whole conversation about, well, ‘Why is it in black and white?’ The kids went home, they wrote commentary responses on the class blog page, and responded to songs like ‘King Kunta.’ ” Mooney wrote a post on his personal blog about his decision to teach classes based on To Pimp a Butterfly. That caught the attention of TDE, and soon after, Mooney got an email from the collective that said Kendrick had read the post and wanted to connect with him. Two weeks later, he’s on the phone with Dave Free to coordinate Kendrick’s visit to the school in June 2015. “I had this mind-set like, ‘He should want to come see this work in action. He should want to see the brilliance of our kids.’ ” To make Kendrick feel comfortable at the school, Mooney instituted a cipher in which the students and teachers rapped. They all rhymed over a beat once used by the rapper Ghostface Killah; that caught Kendrick’s attention. “It broke the ice,” Mooney says. Still, he remembers some teachers not wanting to come to the welcoming assembly for Kendrick’s arrival because they felt it wasn’t worth it. They had misperceptions about him and his art, and “there were definitely some racist attitudes going on,” he says. In the end, Mooney drew comparisons between The Bluest Eye and To Pimp a Butterfly, calling Morrison’s work a parent to Kendrick’s album.
Upon its release, it was somewhat tough to describe Butterfly’s impact; it simply had that thing, that certain gravitas that you couldn’t describe. It had an it factor, and as it played, there was this feeling that you were hearing something familiar and fresh happening at the same time. Artists of his ilk don’t usually create sonically challenging art like this; for the most part, once they find a working formula for their music, and sell a bunch of records as a result, they tend to stay in that lane to ensure their financial security. There’s rarely an impetus for going beyond the scope of what’s expected. So for Kendrick to create such a record was incredibly brave, and it set the course for others to do the same. It gave greater name recognition to the musicians in its liner notes, and because of its dense jazz textures, Kendrick and the jazz experts on To Pimp a Butterfly have been credited with bringing the genre back from obscurity. To Pimp a Butterfly harkened back to the jazz of its heyday—the hard bop of the fifties, and the funk fusion of the late sixties and early seventies—and brought the music to a younger audience. Because of Butterfly’s adventurous nature, and perhaps due to the newfound interest in jazz, Kamasi Washington released The Epic soon after. To Pimp a Butterfly made it okay for Washington to put out such an ambitious project at a time when attention spans were shorter; a three-hour record, of any kind, likely wouldn’t exist before Kendrick’s project. “That record changed music, and we’re still seeing the effects of it,” Washington told Pitchfork. “It went beyond jazz; it meant that intellectually stimulating music doesn’t have to be underground. It can be mainstream. It went beyond everything else, too: harmonically, instrumentation-wise, structurally, lyrically. I feel like people’s expectations of themselves changed, too. It just didn’t change the music. It changed the audience.”
So not only was he changing the world for black people nationwide; he was changing the musical landscape as well. That’s not to ignore the trendsetting black music that came before To Pimp a Butterfly, though: in 2007, long before this album was ever thought of, vocalist Janelle Monáe released an EP called Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase), which blended R&B, orchestral jazz, and science fiction, resulting in a capacious mix of performance art that defined Monáe’s musical career moving forward. Then, in 2014, Flying Lotus released You’re Dead!, essentially a free-jazz album; on it, he and Thundercat explored the spirit’s journey from life to death when the human frame passes away. On a smaller scale, the success of To Pimp a Butterfly opened the door for esoteric black music to get coverage from large rock publications. In the years prior to Butterfly’s release, it was almost impossible to get editors to care about the new generation of jazz artists, but in the months after, everything was a jazz record, and it was easier to get pieces commissioned on Glasper, Terrace Martin, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, and the like. They carried with them a level of intrigue, and from the To Pimp a Butterfly sessions, the publications wanted to know just what they did to create such a vibrant blend of soul, funk, hip-hop, and jazz. The Butterfly cohort became stars, and with their fame came greater opportunities to push their music even further into the world. Kendrick was being hailed as a jazz savior, and as Glasper points out, the rapper began to appear in the pages of the genre’s top publications. He was casting his net even further, touching bigger audiences and spreading his message. That’s how Kendrick became a leader. “I feel like he’s a rebel,” Lalah Hathaway says. “He could come out and do and say anything. What he’s talking about is what’s happening in the street. His art mirrors his life.”
8
The Night Kendrick Ascended
Around 2016, a harsh reality started settling in. In less than a year, the country’s first black president, Barack Obama—term-limited—would be leaving the White House. And not only were we losing President Obama, we were losing his family, too: First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia. The most dynamic first family ever would soon be gone, and all we would have would be memories of the previous seven years. The Obamas had swept into Washington, D.C., in 2008 on a tidal wave of hope and change, and in the black community, there were feelings of euphoria, that the country—which for so long had reminded us that we didn’t belong—was suddenly liberal enough to elect a black man to the highest seat in the land. There was this notion that we had won something: we’d endured the worst of the United States and were somehow moving beyond our horrific past. Just look at the joyful tears the night Barack Obama was elected—the look of pure delight, shock, and bewilderment. Was this the same America?
In hindsight, the notion that we’d moved into some sort of post-racial America was a foolish thought, but we hadn’t seen anything like this—or like Barack Obama—before. He had to be something special to navigate the American political system: equally affable, charismatic, and unflinching, he talked the talk and walked it, doing his best to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats while keeping his own transcendent voice. But even that raised this issue: for a black man to be elected U.S. president, he had to damn near walk on water. He had to have the perfect family, the perfect record, the coolest stride, and a smile that could light Times Square. Not surprisingly, Obama faced resistance, but he remained cool in public. Perhaps he knew that he couldn’t show rage, that if he did, he’d come off as the “angry black man” typically decried in public discourse. His cool made the rest of us relax, even if the first years of his presidency weren’t seamless: In 2009, the first year of his first term, Obama inherited an economy on the verge of financial collapse. The stock markets crashed, unemployment was rampant, and homeowners saw their housing values dwindle. It was the country’s worst economic disaster since the Great Depression in the 1930s. To solve the 2009 crisis, dubbed the Great Recession, the president implemented a plan called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an ambitious $787 billion packag
e that provided immediate relief for businesses, families, and sectors in immediate need. Meanwhile, in what is now a curious move, Donald Trump fashioned himself as an early supporter of Obama’s, especially around the topic of climate change. When he wasn’t taking part in pro wrestling story lines with his friend, World Wrestling Entertainment chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, Trump was part of a contingent of business owners who favored Obama’s desired shift to clean energy. In an ad published in the New York Times, the collective said that the shift would spur economic growth and create new energy jobs. But a year later, Trump disputed the idea of climate change altogether. Then in 2012, he tweeted that climate change “was created by and for the Chinese.” This is a minor example when compared with what he’d pull in subsequent years, but it demonstrates the sort of double-talk he’d use to slowly wade into politics.
Trump once again floated the idea of running for U.S. president, just as he’d done in 1988 and 1999. But this time he seemed serious, even if liberal voters didn’t see him as a threat. There was no way that this guy—the reality show host with a notable catchphrase (“You’re fired”)—had what it took to be the leader of the free world. Sure, he’d proved his mettle as a real estate mogul, but aside from a few casinos and other tall buildings bearing his last name, Trump wasn’t a man most envisioned in the Oval Office one day—not even by a little bit. But slowly and surely, he started inching toward the White House, peeling off one act after another to create a new normal, a new ridiculous normal. In the spring of 2011, Trump had pressed Obama to release his official birth certificate to prove that he was born in the United States, and not Kenya, as some conspiracy theorists had claimed. For a while, President Obama ignored Trump’s calls for his birth certificate to be released. It was “silliness,” he once said, imploring the American public to stick with the issues at hand: the country was still climbing out of a financial hole, and to acknowledge Trump’s noise would be counterproductive. Yet Trump went on shows like The View and Fox News to denounce Obama with wild claims that catered to his voting base in battleground states. Trump claimed that Obama’s grandmother had witnessed Obama’s birth in Kenya, and that she was on tape confirming this notion. To the world outside of New York, this was the beginning of Donald Trump the caricature, and for the next five years, he’d use tactics like these—threats and baseless rhetoric—to rile up a section of America that didn’t like the country’s rapidly changing demographics and political structure.
At least Obama gave a damn, which couldn’t be said about his successor. When Trayvon died, Obama spoke on it through a personal lens. When twenty young pupils died as a result of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, he wept openly, and wiped away not only his tears, but the nation’s. By mid-2015, we were somewhat removed from the well-publicized police shootings of 2012 and 2014, but the pain was still raw as more unarmed blacks died at the hands of law enforcement. In fact, the carnage ramped up: though black men made up 2 percent of the U.S. population, they were nine times more likely to be killed by police officers that year, an alarming stat on its own, yet even more so given public attention on the issue. Racial tensions were high, despite having Obama in office. To be black at that time was to live in constant fear or anger over what was happening to people who looked like us. If you watched the news or scrolled through social media, it was easy to feel like your life didn’t matter, that even though the president tried to instill tranquility, there was a fifty-fifty chance that you could be the next hashtag, the next news segment on CNN, the next talking point in an Al Sharpton speech.
As Kendrick gained more popularity around this time, he started to recede further from the public eye. He backed away from social media and interviews weren’t as frequent. Although he made grand professional strides, Kendrick Lamar was the same Kendrick Lamar Duckworth from a tough city, the quiet and shy kid looking for peace and tranquility. Now he couldn’t just go out, not unless he wanted to cause a scene. He had to protect himself and his feelings, and for him that meant simply staying out of sight until he had to perform. He’d always been behind the scenes, and to be a star made him draw back. Such a move only heightened the mystery surrounding him and made his light shine brighter. He released music into an industry and to fans who demanded around-the-clock access to the rapper. Because his work was so resonant and so real, listeners felt like they knew him and wanted to feel a deeper connection. Conspiracy theories started swirling around the real meaning of his lyrics. Fans, critics, bloggers, and industry insiders loved to discuss Kendrick Lamar albums like current events on the news. He became barber shop talk: Which album is the best? Who do you think he was talking to on “These Walls”? Is he really a gospel rapper? What do you think Kendrick is working on now? Questions like these dot a typical Kendrick convo, and for any artist making an impact, this is essentially the dream they envision. They want listeners to dive into the music and form their own narratives about it. That’s the surest way to stay relevant in the short term, and that’s also how they live forever.
With two classic albums under his belt, Kendrick didn’t have anything else to prove to the public. He achieved in two albums what it might take others four or five albums to accomplish: Kendrick wasn’t only being compared with his peers, he was now being lumped in with the greats: Jay-Z, Nas, the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur. He could only dream of these comparisons four years earlier, but now his records hit on that level, even if he couldn’t fully believe it himself. He was simply saying what was on his mind as a form of release; that rap fans received it so passionately was both surprising and gratifying.
Behind the scenes, though, he was already thinking ahead to the next project, steadfast as always. “That’s Kendrick,” Sounwave told Red Bull Music Academy in 2019. “He was on his fourth album, skip the third album. His brain is… I can’t explain it, but we literally just finished mastering To Pimp a Butterfly and he was like, ‘Alright, that’s cool. So for this next album.’ I’m like, ‘Bro, no, it’s not even out yet. Let it get out first and then we’ll start talking about it.’ And he was like, ‘No, no, don’t worry about it. They gonna get that. For this next album… we gonna do this, we gonna do that. I want to bring this back.’ You just gotta go with it because he’s a genius.” Kendrick still had to promote To Pimp a Butterfly, and he was thinking beyond the conventional setup of him and a live band, or him and Ali with nothing else. He was way past that; it was time to level up even further. He was a crossover star now, and his collaborations began to reflect his new self. Kendrick was rapping on Taylor Swift songs (on “Bad Blood”), flowing on the remix of singer Jidenna’s wildly popular track “Classic Man.” Surely he could flex a little bit, but he was still Kendrick, and To Pimp a Butterfly was still the record to beat that year. His next performance had to be the boldest act he’d ever pulled off—at least to that point.
On June 28, 2015, Kendrick ventured to the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles for the fifteenth annual BET Awards. It was a star-studded affair, just like the Grammys that the rapper attended the prior year, but this show was black—beautifully black. Janelle Monáe was there. As were actors Tracee Ellis Ross and Anthony Anderson (himself a Compton native). Producer and label mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs organized an onstage reunion of 1990s stalwart Bad Boy Records. Motown legend Smokey Robinson sang “Cruisin’ ” and other hallmarks from his catalog. It felt like a reunion, a strong celebration of blackness. At the beginning of the show was Kendrick, standing on top of a hollowed-out police cruiser with graffiti covering its frame. In the background was a massive American flag, its ends frayed and swaying in the breeze. That alone was symbolic: at a time when the country was divided along racial and political lines, the flag represented the tattered unity in which the nation prided itself, the fabric being pulled apart and torn so gently. Standing around Kendrick were dancers, scores of them, all choreographed to move in lockstep with each other beneath a makeshift streetlight. From the outside, the scene felt chao
tic, dangerous, one step away from falling apart. It represented America in 2015, with all its rhetoric and empty apologies to people of color. With each bullet came prayers for the fallen and the plea for unity from others who didn’t look like us. So there was something about Kendrick standing on that car, his shoes grinding into its roof with a wry smile on his face. He looked powerful, like a leader, like a free black man. In this moment he became a symbol, no longer a rapper or anything mortal. You had to look up at him on that deconstructed cop car, and what a throne that was.
Kendrick was there to perform “Alright,” the movement’s new anthem, with all its anti-police lyrics and strong pro-black stance. The live performance, much like To Pimp a Butterfly, was designed to shake up the system and speak the harshest honesty. It went back to what Terrace Martin had said about 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!’ ” Martin tells me. “We were excited by things that really mattered to our people. We’re from L.A. and dealing with a whole line of issues. The feeling was like, ‘Man, I know somebody’s gonna get the message,’ and I was so happy it was done because I felt like our people needed something. They needed something to look at, something to feel, something to listen to. I felt like our people needed and wanted something real and honest, something that was a fine display of challenge, breakthrough, and courage.”
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