Who Is Lamar's Song 'To Pip A Butterfly'

King Kunta is a song from Kendrick Lamar’s album, “To Pimp a Butterfly”, released in 2015. ‘Abuse of power and temptation are constant themes' (Lynch, 2015), which is visible through the lyrics of this song. This song is in reference to Kunta Kinte, a fictional character featured in the novel Roots: The Saga of An American Family written by Alex Haley. Kunta is an African man enslaved in America who in accordance to the novel had his foot cut off when he tried escaping the plantation. There are references made to this incident in the song, Kendrick referred to Kunta as a king. I will analyse how well this music piece does at achieving its desired political message and create a link between this song and the overall political controversy behind

I will examine Lamar’s reasoning behind this claim and how strong of an impact it has on the audience. Lamar succeeds in making power the main subject of the audience’s focus through titling the song King Kunta. The title is an oxymoron, Kendrick seems to be referring to himself as the king who has the power to influence many through his music although he is persecuted much like Kunta the slave. However, what isn't clear for the audience is whether the expression behind the title is the reality of his position within the music industry, or is Lamar implying that the black community are kings in the sense that they are allowed to work and influence those through their jobs, yet face oppression because those in power that protect their rights are often the biggest abusers of those privileges. On the contrary, Kendrick Lamar does clearly illustrate that elite groups abuse their influence by not only protecting the rights of the African American population but giving greater power to the handling of illegal matters like the handling of ‘yams’ which is a slang term for cocaine. He suggests that this support allows drug trade to be openly embraced in the streets through his lyrics, “Oh yes we can, oh yes we can” which could be the voice of a drug dealer shouting fearlessly about their trade. This gives the listener an understanding that the term ‘Yam’ is used in this song to represent the political system being

Bill Clinton is mentioned to be badly influenced by temptations and desires which could possibly be regarding the cases of him cheating on his wife through having various romantic affairs. The deeper meaning behind Lamar picking up on the allegations of cheating made against Bill Clinton could be to make the audience think if those in power are so easily unfaithful to their family then they are also very capable of betraying their country without feeling morally responsible. This seems to make sense because the country was betrayed through being misled to believe his faithfulness to his family. Lamar highlights famous examples involved in drug related tragedies such as comedian Richard Pryor ‘who burned by an explosion while “freebasing” cocaine’ (Staff, 1980). Kendrick Lamar cleverly chooses to focus on Richard Pryor and Bill Clinton to show how both men opposite colour of skin possessing different levels of influence were both victims of power and drugs, which shows a person of any class can be corrupted. This also successfully diminishes the common stereotype of drugs being most present amongst economically poor