22. Kendrick Lamar - “Wesley’s Theory (Feat. George Clinton & Thundercat)“

This song is a mass of contradictions, one moment triumphant the next eviscerating. It digs down deep into the ailments of modern culture, and more specifically the record industry, exposing the ugly underbelly of a world too often portrayed with only glitz and glammer.

It’s a song that sets the stage and tone of To Pimp a Butterfly. It’s the introduction to the opus, ushering in the story of a young black man with the fittingly slow fade in of  “Every nigga is a star”. The inspirational simplicity of the Boris Gardiner sample is the perfect way to sum up the album’s overarching theme before it precipitously descends into chaos. It’s a mantra of underlying value, a glimmer of optimism for POC amidst a world overflowing with reasons for pessimism. However, then it shifts, it takes that optimism and pushes it to the limit, overflowing into the hedonism that so easily creeps in when those without opportunity are suddenly flooded with it. It’s why themes of wealth and pleasure are so endemic in Hip-Hop, and why the record industry that thrives off of these artists perpetuates it. It’s the impoverished suddenly getting showered in wealth, and being not only ecstatic, but also unused to it, and therefore immediately squandering it. But it’s more than that. It’s the sheer joy and triumph of success suddenly leaving the artist in bondage to said wealth. Where now, in order to be successful not only must they make more wealth, but they must also spend the wealth on meaningless expenditures, living lavishly in order to prove their success. It’s an ourobrous of sorts, a new bondage, where record labels not only make money off of an artist’s work, but then guarantee said artist’s desperation by encouraging them to perpetuate themes of excess, playing off of the artist’s ego and joy with a toxicity that insures dependence.

Now don’t get me wrong. Success has always been a central theme of Hip-Hop, however there is a fine line between success and excess. In it’s beginning, artists would often speak of their new lives because of the severe juxtaposition posed between the new and the old. It was a braggadocio of sorts, but it was also the result of an overflowing sense of joy and value, the realization that someone whom the world had forgotten could suddenly be elevated out of the backwaters and into the spotlight. It was success that was rightly inspirational. However, as so often happens success attracts attention, and as the old money of the entertainment industry realized the success of Hip-Hop they sought to control and manipulate it. They took naive artists and co-opted their work, promising success in return for ownership with little regard to its effects. It was a new type of slavery, the white world once again subjecting POC, relying upon the allure of short-term wealth to outshine the stability of the long-term success. It’s a musical imperialism of sorts, encouraging excess out of selfishness, taking advantage of naivety and robbing the rightful owners, bleeding them dry while pursuing a separate agenda of their own.

This song portrays the above scenario from the eyes of a young artist. You’ve suddenly made it, and now you find yourself in the foreign world of success, a world that both simultaneously coddles and strangles you. It’s a wild song, a runaway train that leaves the listener feeling as if they’re speeding down the highway in a brand new luxury car, with money flying, music blaring, and adrenaline coursing. You’re high off of success and ready for instant gratification. It’s a world that’s full of temptation, where previously impossible pleasures are now within your grasp. The old you is gone, fading and disappearing by the moment. The new you is full of expectation, a blank slate being written upon by forces outside of you. You can’t help it. You’re drawn to it. Dreams and fantasies are your new reality. Every thought lifting you further and further away from where you were once so grounded. It’s surreal and anticipatory. You’re caught in the moment, heart palpitating and mouth salivating, pushing aside your conscience and any qualms to submit to pure, uninhibited emotion. It’s an unquestionably intoxicating experience, yet heartbreaking all the same to watch so much inspiration and success quickly spiraling out of control, losing sight of itself, blinded by the light as its potential gets robbed and abused by an overarching system of power.