
Often times distinctive features are portrayed throughout artwork and music videos in a way to provoke subliminal thought in a viewer’s mind. Our minds are always subconsciously thinking about underlying meanings whether we realize it or not. Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” music video subliminally acts on our minds without us knowing by the music video being black and white. Our eyes subconsciously pick up on the contrasting looks of the darkly colored African American men and the white police officers. Our minds have been trained to relate evil to darkness and white to be a more positive color. The music video also subconsciously acts on our minds with the integration of thought provoking lyrics that act as a catalyst to our imagination, allowing us as the viewer to connect to our past experiences and affect the views we have on the controversial topics presented in the music video. We relate these ideas back to what is happening in today’s world. In Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” music video he uses frames with issues and ideas representative of today’s current problem between African Americans and police officers to evoke awareness in viewers. One of the current problems he was insinuating towards was the “Hands up, don’t shoot” movement. African Americans are often targeted by police officers and recently have been subject to several shootings involving unarmed black men being shot by police officers. The imagery portrayed in Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” shows African Americans running from cops and trying to survive in a world filled with discrimination.

A visual motif often portrayed in Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” music video is an image of African American men rising above police officers and law. The first way in which this is portrayed is a shot of Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and Jay riding in an old, beat-up car, being carried by four police officers. The shot used is a black and white shot to contrast the opposing skin colors of the four black men in the car against the white skin tone of the four police officers carrying the car without focusing too much on the background or foreground. The reason for using black and white is because the skin color of the men in the car and the police officers carrying them can be categorized into either black or white and by creating a neutral ground for all other background colors, it allows the viewer to focus on the centerpieces of the shot, the racially divided people. This shot symbolizes Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and Jay having fun, in their old car, listening to music, while staying above police. They are not doing anything illegal, and would therefore give them no reason to have a cop submit dominance upon them and be in control of the situation. The way the scene is shot lets you first observe the African America men in the car, with the thought that they are just driving the car, but then when it zooms out, you see that the car is in fact being carried by four police officers. 

The shot of the white police officers carrying the run down car with the four rappers inside is used to send a message that there is always an underlying meaning to something and that you cannot judge something upon your first glance. Likewise, police officers should not be able to judge the four African Americans driving this old car, based on their looks and their car. In this shot Kendrick, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, and Jay are all “vibing” to music being played in the car and one of the rappers is drinking alcohol in the back of the car. This imagery of these four African Americans in the car shows them as looking gangster. In today’s society an issue of high political importance is discrimination, the judging of a person based on their skin color. Most commonly in the criminal justice system today, police frequently discriminate against African Americans. Kendrick Lamar looks to reverse the roles and show African Americans being treated well by cops and almost as being served, with police carrying the rapper’s car on their shoulders. In doing so, it causes the viewers to think more in-depth at the message Lamar is trying to send. When the eye perceives something abnormal, the viewer wants to figure out what it is that makes the scene seem odd. The shot of the police officers carrying Kendrick Lamar’s car causes the viewer to think deeply about the message that the music video is trying to convey. 

Another way in which a motif is displayed in Kendrick’s “Alright” music video is with an image of Kendrick Lamar sitting on top of a traffic light. This frame, while showing a lot in it, can also have a lot of underlying connotations. The scene shows Kendrick Lamar perched on top of a traffic light in a big city with other African American bystanders looking at him in admiration. In this case, the stoplight is representative of our laws and the policing system in our society. Kendrick sitting on this stoplight is an image used to portray an African American man rising above the law. The African American’s down below looking up at Kendrick have a look of admiration in their eyes and a smile on their faces. They are smiling because they see another member of their African American community rising above the law and taking a stand for his rights. The lyrics of the song at this moment in the music video say, “I can see the evil.” With Kendrick Lamar being above the law and being able to see the evil, he is able to see how corrupt our policing system is.

Throughout “Alright”, distinct visual features including the two scenes mentioned above are all working collectively towards the common purpose of displaying the current predicament in America, African Americans vs. police forces. The music video encases the principal problem of police, in which they shoot harmless citizens. Many forms of streamed media like Kendrick Lamar’s music video for “Alright” have underlying meaning about today’s current issues and we tend to not even grasp them. These messages influence our viewpoints on these issues by the way they are depicted and presented to us through pop culture media. Sometimes you have to stand back and look at the messages the artist is trying to get across through his works. 