to pimp a butterfly
an essay i wrote for my IB English HL course, on what i believe is kendrick lamar's magnum opus
In his rap album To Pimp A Butterfly, Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar places the racial oppression within American society under critical examination. By employing various literary techniques to depict his experiences as an African American, Lamar draws references to W.E.B. DuBois’ theory of double consciousness, which argues that this African American experience encompasses “the awareness of belonging to two conflicting cultures,” namely, their African culture, which “grew from African roots and was transformed by its [unique] history on American soil,” as well as the white European culture imposed upon them by America (Tyson 346). On an explicit level, To Pimp A Butterfly provides a narrative about the speaker’s inner conflicts with fame, desire, race, and self-love; however, because of Lamar’s creative use of stylistic choices throughout, it is imperative to consider the implicit meanings woven across the body of work, the first of which can already be deciphered from the album title itself: the act of “pimping” a “butterfly” can translate to the exploitation of a natural, innocent body, guilty only of existing. Thus, this concept of “pimping” informs the audience of the album’s narrative arc: initially, the speaker navigates with difficulty the reconciliation of his “hood” origin and his mainstream fame; then, he dissects the hypersexualization of his own body, until finally, he reaches a point of self-actualization by acknowledging his roots as well as the systemic representation of his identity. In this regard, Kendrick Lamar depicts body parts in To Pimp A Butterfly to illustrate the double consciousness of African Americans’ struggle for identity.
The album To Pimp A Butterfly can be interpreted as a three-act narrative resembling a hero’s journey. Lamar uses the song “Institutionalized”, located in the first act, to introduce the rising conflict within the speaker’s identity as he struggles to mediate his cultural upbringing in an African American “ghetto” with his present fame as an emerging rap artist (6). The concepts of double consciousness connect to the speaker’s focus on his “image” versus his body, as he analyzes the dichotomy between his sophisticated external “image” and his repressed, internal body of “hood” culture (76). Immediately, the song title “Institutionalized” contextualizes the speaker’s oppressive circumstance: the common definition of “institutionalized” describes the process of a person becoming less capable of acting independently under the rules of an institution. The speaker, having entered the realm of mainstream success and discovering its confining rules, finds himself unable to behave as his previous self did in the “hood” with his “homies” (77). Considering the broader scope of the album, since this song marks the speaker’s arrival in the American “institution” of conventional fame, his body is not yet deconstructed but instead presented by Lamar as an unstable whole: “I don’t know the full definition of a rap image” (2). In this lyric, the diction “full definition” and “image” assumes a double meaning: one interpretation presents the speaker’s literal confusion about how he should present himself as a newly famous rapper, since this is unfamiliar territory; the following interpretation supports the first, synthesizing the words “full definition” and “image” in conjunction to emphasize the overwhelming significance of maintaining a fully realized person, no matter how superficial. A connection is made to DuBois’ theory of double consciousness as the speaker addresses his struggle to reconcile old and new cultural principles as he participates in the “BET Awards”, and catches his friend from the hood “thinkin’ ‘bout snatchin’ jewelry” (39) Lamar puts equal focus on both the speaker’s BET Awards and his friend’s impulses, creating a juxtaposition that evokes feelings of unease in the listener. Through this authorial decision, Lamar prompts the listener to undergo the pressure that many African Americans face when experiencing double consciousness: a damaging result of the ongoing racial prejudice in America.
Also in the album’s first act, the song “For Free” functions as an interlude, honing in on the stereotypical hypersexualization of African American men: it explores the duality that Black men have “historically been depicted as aggressive, hypersexual and violent,” while in actuality this oppressive misconception and “forced subjugation” perpetuated by external forces has caused Black American men to be placed “constantly at risk”; they are in fact “deeply fragile” (Hackman). Lamar employs hypersexualization as the song’s primary authorial choice to describe the speaker’s body parts, equating the hypersexualized perceptions of Black individuals in modern society to the commodification of Black individuals in America’s history of slavery; Lamar places monetary value on the speaker’s genitalia to subversively convey the unacknowledged contributions of slave labor to the American economy. Through synecdoche, Lamar distills the speaker’s entire worth to his “dick”, creating a sense of irony by drawing parallels to the commodification of Black bodies in historical occurrences such as slave auctions: “You lookin’ at me like [my dick] ain’t a receipt” (15). The “receipt” is a symbol of commodification, implicitly describing an object whose role is to tally a transaction. More broadly, the titular assertion of the song depicts the speaker’s choice to reclaim ownership of his body: “I picked cotton and made you rich / Now my dick ain’t free” (50-51). The line break in this lyric is delivered as a short pause, and displays a sudden narrative shift, beginning from the tonally passive subjugation of African American slaves in the first clause, then breaking into the present with the word “now”. Furthermore, the blunt statement “my dick ain’t free” directly alludes to the album title To Pimp A Butterfly: the “butterfly” represents the speaker as he fights a history of exploitation—or “pimping”—by using his agency as a rapper to assert his worth in his own words. This event signals a turning point within the overarching narrative of the album.
Transitioning to the album’s final act, Lamar portrays the speaker’s process of self-actualization as he acknowledges his roots and the misrepresentation of his identity; this is most evident in the song “The Blacker The Berry”. In this portion of the album’s underling narrative, the speaker proudly dissects his physical features to subvert the challenges discussed in the first act, such as his fragmented and commodified identity. Importantly, the issue of misrepresentation is raised early in the song; the distortion of the speaker’s external image by oppressive external forces is conveyed powerfully in this claim: “You vandalize my perception” (28). The second-person pronoun “you” refers broadly to the figures who perpetuate stereotypes that that deliberately mar Black identities, while the verb “vandalize” connotes the injustice of this action since it implies the unlawful disfiguration of another’s image. In the scope of the whole song, this lyric solidifies how racist individuals and structures harm African American identities through misrepresentation. Lamar narrows this down by focusing on physical stereotypes; in an aggressive, self-assured tone, the speaker declares: “My hair is nappy, my dick is big, my nose is round and wide” (24). The targeting of isolated body parts directly confronts the listener with the ways American society dissects the images of these individuals in order to dehumanize them, thus sustaining the legacy of systemic racial oppression. This stance is supported by the employment of tricolon in the lyric, resulting in a list-like delivery that further dehumanizes the subject, even evocative of racial profiling. However, despite these threats, the speaker returns to the idea of double consciousness by simultaneously directing the listener’s attention to his roots, juxtaposing the few stereotypical facets of his body perceived by American society against his authentic African heritage: “I’m black as the moon, heritage of a small village” (21). In contrast to the previous lyric, where the speaker plainly lists his features, the speaker now compares his skin color to the moon via simile. Taking into account the self-assured tone of the phrase “heritage of a small village,” an argument can be made that this line is a proclamation of cultural pride. Alternatively, it is equally interesting to note that the “moon” may embody a symbol that wholly represents double consciousness, since in its true form, the moon is neither black nor white, but only appears so depending on its lunar phase. This subtlety can be interpreted as the speaker’s attempt to reflect upon his cyclical relationship with double consciousness, as he confronts whether his identity and features conform to the cultural environment he currently inhabits. This would be relevant to the song “Institutionalized”, because despite the speaker’s newfound recognition beyond his hometown, there are instances in which he finds difficulty in reconciling the fragmented parts of his identity under the constraints of racial oppression. Hence, this song marks a point of self-actualization in the album, as the speaker understands the extent to which his agency can shape his identity within the limitations of American society.
In conclusion, Lamar’s employment of body parts to depict double consciousness progresses in cumulative stages across the album, prompting the listener to undergo the pressures that many African Americans face without choice. By openly portraying the harmful dichotomies imposed upon Black individuals, such as hypersexualization and large-scale misrepresentation, To Pimp A Butterfly is a highly influential rap album that sheds light on their struggle for identity.
thanks for reading my essay! i just wanted to quickly note that unlike the other literary analyses i’ve posted here, such as my discussions of queerness in OEWBG and Chinese identity in The Farewell, my discussion of Black identity in this essay is solely based on research and not from my own lived experiences, because i am not of African descent or culture; i am Southeast Asian. although i thoroughly enjoyed analyzing lamar’s album, i am sure there are aspects of Black culture and double consciousness that i didn’t touch upon, and if you have any corrections or experiences you’d like to share, i would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! <3
what a smartie essay