More than a Movement: Kendrick Lamar in a Global Context of Blackness
In Marcus J. Moore’s The Butterfly Effect… (Nope. That aint the style)
Marcus J. Moore writes about… (That aint it either, Justin. Try again.)
Marcus J. Moore opens a window for readers; We’re at the Grammy’s with Kendrick as they get ready to announce the winner for best rap album. Nervous. Ready. “And the winner is Macklemore!” Angry. Disappointed. Robbed. Pimped. In The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America, we learn that these emotions prompted Kendrick’s transformative visit to South Africa and laid the foundation for To Pimp a Butterfly.
In the first written biography on the artist, Marcus J. Moore describes the life and career of Kendrick Lamar. Moore situates the prominence and success of To Pimp a Butterfly, along side and within, the Movement for Black Lives and the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the United States. From reviews already published, it seems that what readers are taking away from the book has much to do with Chapter 7. We agree that this is an important chapter; one where Moore discusses the song “Alright” alongside anti-Black racism, anti-Black violence, anti-Black police brutality, and political uprisings all in some detail. But there is something Moore to the book (pun intended).
By the time that the then Minister of Finance of South Africa, Malusi Gigaba, quoted Kendrick on the Parliament floor in Cape Town, Kendrick’s song “Alright” had already become a symbol of Black justice movements in America. But the significance of the song’s reach, all the way to the parliament floor of South Africa, reveals what Moore’s book is really all about.
The Butterfly Effect locates Kendrick Lamar in a global context of Blackness. On our interpretation of Moore’s, To Pimp A Butterfly was an album from and for the African diaspora. “Ultimately, South Africa played a significant role in Kendrick’s career and in many ways,“ Moore writes. “South Africa gave Kendrick the freedom to be himself.” The Butterfly Effect follows Kendrick Lamar on a pilgrimage to South Africa following the Grammy debacle that would “ultimately alter the course of Black music forever.”
Moore discusses how Kendrick’s 2014 trip to South Africa laid the foundation for To Pimp a Butterfly and how in many ways, To Pimp a Butterfly was as much about South Africa as it was about Compton. The Butterfly Effect allows its readers to see Kendrick’s struggle trying to present connections between the two places to people who may have experienced only one. K. Dot was meticulous, absorbing everything in South Africa from lessons about Mandela’s time in prison to tension from South African artists about not being allowed to access Dot’s entire stage during their performances; but Kendrick also gained valuable relationships with artists that he’d ultimately end up working with on his 2018 Black Panther album such as Babes Wodumo and Yugen Blakrok.
For all the transformational shifts that took place for Kendrick in SA, there was something more subtle that shaped Kendrick’s prolific artistry earlier in his life. For it was an intervention from his creative writing teacher Mr. Inge, that repeatedly challenged Kendrick to be more than just a good creative writer, but excellent one. This is nothing to bat an eye at. In an age and an era where STEM education and coding classes are constantly being lobbied for to give access to children in urban centers, it turns out that the humanities and the arts is what produced the Pulitzer Prize winning artist, and not binary 0’s and 1’s. Kendrick opted for the mic check’s 1’s and 2’s.
While most of the book is aimed at an audience that is likely to be unfamiliar with the rise of Top Dawg Entertainment, Los Angeles natives familiar with the label’s rise will appreciate the attention that Moore dedicates to Grammy award winning artist Jay Rock—the sacrificial lamb of TDE. Rock’s rap career was also shaped by a kind of robbery—both of opportunity and of a member his family’s life.
In “The Birth of Kendrick Lamar” we see Rock’s influence and career blaze a trail that Kendrick would soon traverse. Moore recounts the tragedy of Rock losing his cousin while on tour, as almost creating a kind of divine intervention for Dot to, (another pun) take center stage.
Moore’s most enjoyable writing is found in how he describes the mood, atmosphere, vibes, and energy of the recording sessions for To Pimp. Kendrick cultivated a work environment that brought together the best musicians in Los Angeles and from the world more broadly, and Moore’s depictions of these sessions read like a film reel.
Ultimately, The Butterfly Effect is a treat for Kendrick stans and for mind’s curious about the artist more generally. The book outlines a persistent theme of anti-black police brutality in the back drop of Los Angeles Hip-Hop from N.W.A. through Kendrick’s entire catalogue. It takes readers on a pleasant trip down memory lane with its analysis of songs like “ADHD”, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst”, “Rigamortis”, “Swimming Pools”, and “F*ck Your Ethnicity”. The book’s page count and font size make for a moderate tempo and the interior cover art prompts thoughts of buying a second copy just to rip off the covers and display their interiors on a wall. We’d say it was a pretty enjoyable read; a welcomed disruption to the often monotonous tone of reading conducted for research.
-@Urfavfilosopher
