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posted on wordpress 11/17/14
The things I feel for this song are immense. His personal trials through this song and the uplifting spirit is exactly why I know what I want to do. You see, Lamar dropped this in a time where black people are suffering from immense pain. We are being killed for no reason, we are grappling with the fatal reality of antiblackness, but we are living. Now, this song is (I think) not specifically about that but the candid way in which he speaks about his feelings and struggles is so refreshing to see from a black person, a black man.
The trope that we need to be strong always and don’t suffer the ways others do harms us immensely. But letting that out, letting that pain free, and showing it through music, through art is so valuable. This video represents how this song makes me feel, how proud I am of him to create this, of being black. The video is gorgeous. It represents all life but specifically black life as we see the black women and children, the dark skin black people and men. I can never take for granted when we are shown positively but also just living. The good, the bad, the easy, the sensuality, the sensitivity, our everyday. We are not one thing, we contain multitudes and feel what others feel everyday. Live what you live, sometimes more but always assumed less. The lyrics hurt but they also help us continue on and the video expresses our ability to get free.
The song and the video are just so incredibly powerful and I am so glad to have watched this.
Stop, stop! We talkin’ about peace. A peace of yours, a peace of mine. A piece of mind. One nation under a groove.
“everybody lookin’ at you crazy what you gon’ do? lift up your head and keep moving or let the paranoia haunt you? peace to fashion police, i wear my heart on my sleeve let the runway start you know the miserable do love company what do you want from me and my scars? everybody lack confidence, everybody lack confidence how many times my potential was anonymous? how many times the city making me promises? so i promise this: i love myself.”
“I hit Top Dawg, I say ‘I wrote a record for the homies that’s in the penitentiary right now. I also wrote a record for these kids that come up to my show with these slashes on they wrist saying they don’t wanna live no more.’ If I say something this blatant, this bold, this simple, they can take reaction from that, they can lock your body, they can’t trap your mind for my homies that’s in the pen. For the people that’s outside they have something more to live for, it starts with yourself first, and you won’t be thinking all these negative things that’s completely corrupt in your brain.” (interview)
“one day at a time the sun gon’ shine”
“Director Alexandre Moors stated in an interview withRevolt that the whole video was inspired by Ernie Barnes‘ Sugar Shack and this scene was inspired by The Joker in The Dark Knight.” (rapgenius)
i went to war last night with an automatic weapon don’t nobody call a medic i’ma do it til’ i get it right i went to war last night, i’ve been dealing with depression ever since an adolescent duckin’ every other blessin’, i can never see the message, i could never take the lead, i could never bob and weave from a negative and letting them annilhate me and it’s evident i’m moving at a meteor speed finna run into a building, lay my body in the street keep my money in the ceiling, let my mama know i’m free give my story to the children and a lesson they can read and the glory to the feeling of the holy unseen seen enough make a motherfucker scream, “I LOVE MYSELF.”
