He's an outgrowth. Kendrick Lamar has found words like no other for struggling with precarious origins and the pain of changing milieu. Rejection from home, loneliness in a new social environment, the fear of having to go back - his album "How to pimp a butterfly" describes a metamorphosis. For the protesters of “Black Lives Matter” in 2015 it became a parable on the stony path to emancipation and self-empowerment. Lamar is now a Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winner. "Alright" has long been considered

the

song of the 2010s. Kendrick Lamar is discussed at universities, and his texts find their way into anthologies.

But what can you do with this phrase, which Pharell Williams, who also produced the beat, repeats over and over again in Hook - “We gon 'be alright”?

Is this where the "Age of Aquarius" begins?

Is Lamar a rapping history philosopher?

The world on the straight path towards recovery?

Of course not.

Lamar doesn't give us an ecumenical imagine-all-the-people moment.

This is about religious self-evocation.

Police violence is a real danger for black people, and Lamar is afraid of his own decisions, but trust in God could, no: it just has to bring order to the whole mess:

And we hate po-po


Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho '


I'm at the preacher's door


My knees gettin' weak, and my gun might blow


But we gon 'be alright





Torn between the ghetto and the music industry?

On the album, “Alright” is embedded in a poem that gives structure (“I remember you was conflicted”).

Each verse corresponds to a song.

Kendrick Lamar has left Compton, the iconic suburb south of Los Angeles that is still characterized by gang crime to this day.

Now he sleeps in hotels, receives artistic recognition, financial freedom and influence.

But the ghetto and the music industry collide in Lamar, crush him.

One does not simply get rid of existential fears, they shift: It is no longer the next police check that causes brooding and circles of thought, but the tax investigation.

And how should someone learn to deal with power who has only ever known powerlessness (Sometimes I did the same / Abusing my power, full of resentment)?

When it became known at the end of 2010 that Dr.

Dre is working with a young rapper from California, the scene held its breath for a moment.

Because Dre has sponsored a number of superstars together with Interscope Executive Jimmy Iovine over the past 30 years: Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent.

All very influential, all more blockbusters than art house.

At Lamar, wrong expectations could quickly arise.

In addition, he comes from Los Angeles, a city that is not directly associated with cerebral rap lyrics.

At least since “Good Kid, MAAD City” (2012) it was clear that someone wanted to break the gangsta rap corset of his homeland.

But how did he do it?