Rap music has always had an interesting relationship with pop culture.  Even with the controversial lyrics that are associated with rap music, a majority of the top 40 hits are made from rap artists. Many think that rap is nothing more than bass heavy music about guns, sex and drugs, but artists like Kendrick Lamar prove otherwise.  In the song "The Blacker the Berry" Kendrick Lamar uses references to historical events and well known texts to shed light on, what he considers, hypocritical view on violence in the Black community. 

In the first verse, it is clear the narrator is directing his words towards a white audience.  He says "You hate me don't you?/You hate my people, your plan is to terminate my culture" (1:15).  This is building up the mentality that Lamar believes most Blacks in America have, that the problems are between Whites and Blacks.  At the end of the verse he makes a reference saying, "You sabotaged my community, makin' a killin'/You made me a killer" (1:32).  This is pulling on a big scandal that occurred in the government.  It is believed by many that the CIA is responsible for an rapid rise of crack cocaine in poor black communities in the U.S., especially California, where Kendrick Lamar is from. In 1996 a reporter published a three articles that were meant to expose a link between the C.I.A. and the Nicaragua Contra rebel army (United.) The article stated that the CIA not only allowed Contras to import cocaine into the United States, especially in and around L.A., but protected them to assure profit would come to the Contras.  CIA admitted to allowing Contra drug trade but denied protecting and profiting from the actions, even though it was well known that many of the CIA  pilots that were supposed to be transporting arms from the south, had a history of drug trafficking (Grim.)  Creating a dependency in these poor communities would ensure a steady demand for more drugs, allowing the CIA to continue to profit.  This is used to further support that idea that the problem is between oppressed African-Americans and powerful white officials.

The second verse calls out the those who are in charge and believe that Black Americans are actually free. Lamar writes "Institutionalized manipulation and lies/Reciprocation of freedom only lives in your eyes (2:27.)"  Here Lamar could be doing two things.  He could be referencing the Emancipation Proclamation because it is well known that even thought the document said to free all slaves, it was ignored and slavery continued anyways.  Even after slavery was officially ended, segregation and discrimination was still used to keep people of a darker complexion, down in society. Freedom was only alive in those who didn't see or care to look at what was really happening to Blacks.  The other way this like could be interpreted as, is a reference to incarceration in the United States. In an earlier line Lamar says "I mean, it's evident that I'm irrelevant to society/That's what you're telling me, penitentiary would only hire me" It is known that Blacks are statistically more likely, nearly six times more likely, to be incarcerated than whites (Mauer.) This causes all kinds of trouble for already struggling families.  One less income for a home, diminished job opportunities upon release, inability to receive loans, and much more.  On top of the incarceration, many private prisons use the prisoners for free labor. For instance, in Angola, LA, a former plantation is worked by prisoners, the majority of them being black, while they are watched over by armed men on horseback.  While the prisoners work long days in the sun, they are compensated as little as two cents per hour for their labor. Even private farmers get in on the practically free labor through prisoner leasing programs.  Though this may seems illegal and unconstitutional, the thirteenth amendment specifies that slavery and involuntary servitude are legal "as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" (Benns.)  With this reinvented form of slavery, it is easy to see that Lamar holds a belief of freedom that only lives in others eyes.

The title of this piece is extremely important. "The Blacker the Berry" is also the title of a book by Wallace Thurman that gained huge popularity within the black community for its insight into racism and color based discrimination.  But, what made this book to controversial is,  it wasn't about racism between blacks and whites, rather discrimination within the black community.  This novel attempted to illustrate the hypocrisy of blacks in America complaining about injustice brought on by whites while they themselves discriminated against each other.  Similarly, in this song, Kendrick Lamar brings out a more violent hypocrisy that occurs in African-American communities with the closing verse.

In  the last verse it is revealed why he has been calling himself a hypocrite at the beginning of every verse.  Lamar says "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street when/gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me?/Hypocrite!" (4:26.) Here we can see how the title is related to the theme of this rap.  Lamar uses the first two verses of the song to build an emotional connection with the idea of inequality between Blacks and Whites but then comes full circle and illustrated how hypocritical it is when looked alongside black on black crime.  Similarly, when asked about the riots in Ferguson Lamar said " What happened to [Michael Brown] should've never happened. Never. But when we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don't start with just a rally, don't start from looting -- it starts from within" (Edwards.)  This is the same mentality that Wallace Thurman had when he wrote "The Blacker the Berry."  Lamar used this historical piece of writing to make a connection to current day issues.  Instead of relating color discrimination between Blacks and Whites to discrimination within the black community he related violence between police officers and young black men to the violence between rival gangs.  

The historical context of this song is what makes it so potent. With this idea of hypocrisy in mind, it could be inferred that Lamar used the CIA-Contra scandal and the injustices involved for a specific reason. It is possible Lamar feels like these are examples of hypocrisy as well.  Though the CIA allowed drugs to enter Las Angeles, people in those communities still had the choice to take the drugs or not, it is hypocritical to blame anyone else but your own community for buying the drugs, regardless of how they got there.  And even though this new form of slavery or involuntary labor is wrong and shouldn't be forced on a person against their will, they had to do something illegal to get themselves in that situation. Lamar, like Wallace, recognizes that this hypocrisy isn't something that is new and it is something that needs to be confronted and dealt with before any major changes can be made.

