The Lyricism Of K.Dot
Renae Townsend | Opinion Editor
Anthropologists describe music as sound used to convey deep emotions and stories that words alone cannot capture. It’s supposed to evoke emotions in the audience that listen to it—and like authors, the language of musicians can have an everlasting impact. One of the greatest lyricists in musical history has to be Kendrick Lamar.
Kendrick Lamar has been one of my biggest inspirations for writing, even though I’m not a songwriter. It all comes down to his words and his writing process. Whenever I sit down to tell a story, I always refer back to the way Lamar tells his anecdotes across his discography.
Every song on his albums strives to mean more than a typical musician’s. They reflect his childhood in Compton, and his past vices. They ruminate on sex and passion, guilt and pride, and social issues.
Take good kid, m.A.A.d city, for instance. Instead of just telling listeners that growing up in Compton was dangerous, Lamar structures the anecdotal album like a short film, dropping us straight into an attempted robbery.
“I hit the back window in search of any Nintendo
DVD's, plasma-screen TV's in the trunk
We made a right, then made a left, then made a right
Then made a left, we was just circlin' life
My mama called, "Hello? What you doin'?"
"Kickin' it"
I shoulda told her I'm probably 'bout to catch my first
offense with the homies
But, they made a right, then made a left
Then made a right, then another right
One lucky night with the homies”
-- The Art of Peer Pressure, Kendrick Lamar, 2012.
Every skit he describes, every voicemail his mother leaves, and beat switches builds tension until the listener feels the exact weight of his choices.
To Pimp a Butterfly, is a sprawling dense novel. In this sophomore album, Lamar zooms out from his own life to examine the broader Black experience. He uses recurring metaphors—like the caterpillar and the butterfly—and after every song, adds lines to a spoken word poem, piece by piece. By the end the album closes with a fabricated interview with the late Tupac Shakur; the audience realizes that every single track was a steppingstone towards Lamar’s thesis. His patience and structure illustrate to me that the whole truth doesn’t need to be revealed on the first page. The best way to inject a message is to let it build slowly.
Kendrick’s level of literacy and craftsmanship is exactly why he made history in 2018. His album DAMN. won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. This made him the first non-classical, non-jazz artist to ever receive the honor. This confirmed what hip-hop fans had known for years; some raps are modern poetry, and Kendrick Lamar is one of its sharpest poets.
Even as his career has evolved with his later albums, his storytelling hasn’t wavered.
For college students, I believe there’s no better blueprint than Kendrick Lamar. His storytelling is vast and honest. I encourage this audience to listen to Lamar’s albums from beginning to end. You just may gain inspiration for your next writing assignment.
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