Without even realizing it, Kendrick Lamar recently illustrated a major problem in the music industry in 2018.
At one of his recent concerts — the Hangout Festival in Alabama this past Sunday — Lamar brought a white fan up on stage to help him sing his song “M.A.A.D. City.”
The only problem is that the song’s chorus goes: “Man down where you from, n****? F*** who you know, where you from, my n****? Where your grandma stay, huh, my n****? …” (Need we go on?)
The fan, named Delaney, did just as Lamar asked. However, he then told this fan, “You gotta bleep one single word, though” — and then proceeded to boot her off the stage as other fans booed her.
It’s hardly a great look for this fan now that a video is out there of her rapping using the N-word — but some people seem to think that’s what Lamar wanted to happen.
After all, he didn’t tell her beforehand to censor herself.
https://twitter.com/jesuspasos09/status/998657202297688066
@kendricklamar set that girl up for publicity and as a stunt. For everyone who claims their favorite rapper is real not mainstream, this was as set up and fake as it gets all for attention.
— R. Clemens (@itsclemens) May 21, 2018
She sang the words to HIS song. That song and all the songs with that word in it should be sold with an ethnicity label on it. White Section/ Black Section/ Latino Section /Asia Section etc, etc, etc. But that sounds like segregation to me.
He can’t have it both ways.— Just Another Citizen (@Tankklr25) May 22, 2018
All this fan did to get kicked off the stage and get booed by the crowd was sing the correct lyrics to one of Lamar’s songs. It was Lamar himself who put the N-word in his lyrics to begin with — and yet he and his fans condemned someone who was trying to follow instructions on the stage.
This isn’t the first time someone has been chastised under these circumstances, either. Most recently, in late March, the Virginia Tech women’s lacrosse team was forced to apologize after a video leaked of their players rapping along to a song called “Freaky Friday” by Lil Dicky — which contained the N-word.
If the use of the N-word is offensive when a white person uses it in the context of a song, then why are fans and a rapper OK with putting it into music in the first place? If Lamar doesn’t think his lyrics are OK for others to use — especially people of a different race — then what makes him think his work is appropriate at all?
Remember, this is someone who won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year, despite his shockingly vulgar lyrics. There are over 200,000 other words in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary; Lamar only likes to pick those with the highest shock value.
Note to Lamar: Take that awful word out of your lyrics. If people live in a culture in which they hear profanity often, then it’s more likely they will have no issue using it themselves.
However, if they don’t hear Kendrick Lamar using it in every line of the chorus to one of his more popular songs — perhaps its usage would decline.
Tom Joyce is a freelance writer from the South Shore of Massachusetts. He covers sports, pop culture, and politics and has contributed to The Federalist, Newsday, ESPN, and other outlets.
(photo credit, homepage image: Kendrick Lamar, CC BY-SA 4.0, by Batiste Safont; photo credit, article image: Kendrick Lamar: The DAMN. Tour, CC BY 2.0, by Kenny Sun)
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