This Kurt Vonnegut quote is one of the greatest of all time imo and is always something to remember

'During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.'

That’s incredible. Thank you for showing that to me, it distills this point perfectly.

kurt vonneGOAT fr

I feel you

I don't like the overall message either, I still think it's an interesting portrayal of somebody kinda losing hope and turning towards himself and his own world after getting so frustrated with trying to fix the world. ​I don't think he meant it to be digested in that way, I think he really wanted to convince the listener that it's the right thing for him to do, which is why he insists on reminding us that he is not our savior, but it's an intimate look into his mind, and it's a very honest self-portrait of where he is in life now, which I can still appreciate even if I disagree with his current mindset

are we cultural marxists

Mom: we got Frankfurt school at home

good posts itt op

i was definitely struck by the overt cynicism of the closing tracks here and i think it's an interesting thing to grapple with as a listener but also to witness kendrick do so periodically over the course of the album itself. i think even if i too don't agree with the thrust of kendrick's response (or at least that he's missing the woods from the trees in terms of creating a false binary between detachment and personally bringing up entire societies himself), i can respect and engage with the art where he goes back and forth on these feelings. i think that ability to posit on stuff like this, even if arriving at a not pristinely perfect conclusion, is what makes kendrick interesting in part.

i think an interesting question is where does the blame lie for kendrick developing this view of himself as a singularly society-moving figure? was this on him? fans? the media? all of the above? i think there is an obvious tendency in the world to lend these superhuman levels of influence and importance to rappers in particular, whether it be kendrick or cole or whoever else and obviously kendrick concludes he isn't a fan via saviour. and maybe this is a symptom of a society which commercialises and twists nominally ethical movements or figures into another way to make money - they'll build you up to make money and hold the promise of greater influence just out of reach all along. kendrick i think clearly touches around the edges of this sort of critique but never quite grabs it to my mind, which as you say makes me wonder how his views will develop in future.

but to return to my original point, maybe kendrick feels some guilt in leading himself to believe this one great man theory too and maybe that drives him to detach himself from it in the end too.

it's an interesting concept, i hope we don't have to wait another 5 years for any clarity!

great point on Eckhart Tolle and the concept of self-care but to be fair, that is how 99% of self-help experts are in my experience and you just perfectly articulated why I really dislike the particular notion of prescribing antidepressants and traditional therapy to fix mental illness

in my experience, those things don’t acknowledge the societal and structural aspects that contribute to people’s suffering. it just places everything on the individual and I think that’s a big part of why most people like Kendrick (and even myself a lot of the time) believe that retreating from everyone = bettering yourself

the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality is often applied to more than just economic issues unfortunately

this is such a great discussion. i listened to the album once but haven’t fully digested it yet, mainly bc I have to be in a certain zone to fully absorb music like this and I’ve been hella busy working consecutive 12hr days but I’m def keeping this thread bookmarked for when my day off comes bc there’s hella food for thought in here

What is there to get defensive about?

I think the album, including the Heart Part V, perfectly exemplifies why he's turning inward and curling into himself and leaving the world behind. If this album was anything like a real therapy session for him, Kendrick coming to grips with his place in the world amidst great black death in the form of Nip, and Kobe, and George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and great black controversy: Kanye, Jussie, Dave Chappelle, Will etc. over the past five years couldn't have been easy. And the rise of covid and black deaths by law enforcement and being demanded to be a voice of empowerment in the midst of that--that's a lot to ruminate over and grapple with.

When you take just publicly known stresses like that and compound them with past trauma Kendrick has experienced and things we don't even know he's dealing with, it's easy to imagine why he decided to leave the world behind and focus on himself.

I see it differently. Kendrick's lowest point resulted in him baring his grievances and bleeding all over the project, giving people a crude, naked, isolated view of his thoughts and feelings over the past five years. Perhaps he knew such an unsterilized approach to producing the album would turn people away, and maybe that result is the prescription he felt he needed to get more purchase on his life again.

And I don't actually think he's turning inward and curling into himself so much as he's just regauging what life means to him now.

Before when he was a more starry-eyed, younger Kendrick with ambitions of social change, it was just him and his ideals. He was 25 when GKMC dropped.

He's 34 and has kids now. That isn't to say kids are his coping mechanism, but to say that the birth of his children clearly forced him to reassess what he was doing with his life and if it made sense.

Bro’s just spewing s***

it’s not cynical lol y’all really think it’s cynical for artists to take time for personal therapy

Dam. Classic renegade by Cookies.

@Scratchin_Bandit where you with the album currently

This post explains my thoughts a bit more @Vox

My stance on what I said in OP hasn't changed, but I can appreciate it still even if it's in a way that I don't think Kendrick intended it to be

So was kendrick really trying to save the world of did he read the "i may not change the world but i’ll spark the mind that will" quote from pac when he was young and became obsessed with it since

Nah but i don't think he thought he could save the world but definitely that he could have more of an impact than he did as an artist

"How many leaders you said you needed then left 'em for dead?
Is it Moses? Is it Huey Newton or Detroit Red?
Is it Martin Luther? JFK? Shooter—you assassin
Is it Jackie? Is it Jesse? Oh, I know it's Michael Jackson—oh"

The fact that he put MJ with MLK, Huey Newton and Malcolm shows he at least thinks social change can be achieved with art to an extent, also the end of that poem throughout TPAB

But he always feared and maybe deep down expected it wouldn't happen like he wanted

?

2015: pac lives on
2022: pac lives on i guess but it’s not my problem

it's not a message it's dude life

A message about his life yes ...