The Blacker The Berry Analysis

The instrumentation in “The Blacker the Berry” consists of drums, electric piano, and bass guitars. It also has a bit of jazzier instrumentation involved which is present at the end of the song after the mentioned “ So why did I weep When Trayvon Martin was in the streets?” This gives it a smoother ending in order to end his message with a more powerful meaning. The intensity of the lyrics of “The Blacker the Berry” is strengthen by its use of dark and aggressive rhythm of drums along with haunting melodies in the background. In the first verse, “You never liked us anyway, fuck your friendship, I meant it I'm African-American, I'm African I'm black as the moon” it establishes an overall scene of hatred and violent stereotyped feeling throughout the song. This part of the verse prepares the listeners to hear the instrumentation, which backs up the feeling of hatred that is exposed through lyrics. The overall tone throughout the song remains to be monotonous. The chorus, in the beginning starts off from a lower pitch and in to a higher pitch. As this happens, the tempo starts to change to a more haunting melody as the speedy slowly increase creating a nice balanced harmony. The song shows that the social issue is a huge problem and with the guidance of the vocals,

Artists use the power of music to convey important social issues to help bring awareness to the problem. Like Kendrick Lamar explains in “The Blacker the Berry”, is that racism triggers the individual to feel hatred and oppress. Even though both the songs are musically different in style, but it still conveys the same topic, racism. In contrast, “War” has a more of peaceful tone, which it captures more of the attention of the people to come together to make a change. There is not doubt that both songs bring awareness to racial discrimination its just the manner they convey its message through different styles