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Black cultural practices have a rich and storied history of political resistance. Messages have been encoded into the sounds and lyrics of songs for centuries to circumvent institutional control of Black knowledge. Today, hip-hop has become a global voice for marginalised peoples and the most consumed genre of music in the US. However, Black politics have not found the same mainstream representation as black artists. This article examines the work of rapper Kendrick Lamar and argues that by moving away from a politics of resistance on his 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly and catering to a mainstream audience on his 2017 album DAMN., Lamar has fallen victim to the process of incorporation by the mainstream culture industry. By accommodating an audience that ignores or misreads the political history of hip-hop and Black resistance, Lamar has unwittingly transformed cultural resistance into cultural capital.
KEY WORDS: Blackness, resistance, incorporation, identity, hip-hop
Introduction
Rapper Kendrick Lamar released his breakthrough album To Pimp A Butterfly (TPAB) in 2015 to widespread acclaim from fans and critics alike. His fusion of jazz, soul, and hip-hop, laced with incendiary critiques of institutionalised racism in the United States, struck a chord of pro-Black1 sentiment at the genesis of the Black Lives Matter movement. His hit single Alright became an anthem for protestors, following a failed attempt by police to arrest a 14-year-old boy in Cleveland, Ohio. Fox News criticised the lyrics to Alright, with anchor Geraldo Rivera saying, 'Hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years' (Unruly 20152).
Three years later, Lamar became the first rapper to win a Pulitzer prize for his 2017 triple-platinum album DAMN.. On DAMN., however, Lamar distanced himself from his political views and delivered a more accessible sound whilst simultaneously, hip-hop became the most consumed music genre in the US (Nielsen Music 2018: 31). Shifting his sound in line with mainstream trends, and catering to a homogenous, white audience in the process, Lamar found the kind of success rarely seen by black artists. While one can view this as a grand achievement not only for Lamar, but for hip-hop as a whole, I believe the de-politicisation of his music and mass consumption by mainstream audiences, rendered it inert as a...