So weird to wake up - still white, yes - with this insistent earworm courtesy Kendrick Lamar by way of Boris Gardiner...
Every nigger is a star, ay, every nigger is a star
Who will deny that you and I and every nigger is a star?
...to then sing it, to be sung it, all day.
After yesterday's highly addictive A New Ground by Henry Purcell ("Here the Deities approve" Z.339/3) and with the "every nigger is a star" earworm still at the mindophone it seems an appropriate moment to record here Lamar's question to 2Pac on "Mortal Man", the last track of To Pimp A Butterfly :
[Kendrick Lamar]
"I remember you was conflicted
Misusing your influence
Sometimes I did the same
Abusing my power, full of resentment
Resentment that turned into a deep depression
Found myself screaming in the hotel room
I didn’t wanna self destruct
The evils of Lucy was all around me
So I went running for answers
Until I came home
But that didn’t stop survivor’s guilt
Going back and forth trying to convince myself the stripes I earned
Or maybe how A-1 my foundation was
But while my loved ones was fighting the continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new one
A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination
Made me wanna go back to the city and tell the homies what I learned
The word was respect
Just because you wore a different gang color than mine's
Doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a black man
Forgetting all the pain and hurt we caused each other in these streets
If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us
But I don’t know, I’m no mortal man, maybe I’m just another nigga”
Shit and that’s all I wrote
I was gonna call it Another Nigga but, it ain’t really a poem, I just felt like it’s something you probably could relate to. Other than that, now that I finally got a chance to holla at you, I always wanted to ask you about a certain situa--, about a metaphor actually, you spoke on the ground. What you mean ‘bout that, what the ground represent?
[2Pac]
The ground is gonna open up and swallow the evil
[Kendrick Lamar]
Right
[2Pac]
That’s how I see it, my word is bond. I see--and the ground is the symbol for the poor people, the poor people is gonna open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people. Cause the rich people gonna be so fat, they gonna be so appetising, you know what I’m saying, wealthy, appetising. The poor gonna be so poor and hungry, you know what I’m saying it’s gonna be like… there might be some cannibalism out this mutha, they might eat the rich
[Kendrick Lamar]
Aight so let me ask you this then...
The Ground is a key term and reference for many, which is why we were so interested to hear it focussed on in this Kendrick Lamar album.
Here, we sometimes use that term for the undifferentiated matrix of interconnectedness out of which and into which...
...to then sing it, to be sung it, all day.
After yesterday's highly addictive A New Ground by Henry Purcell ("Here the Deities approve" Z.339/3) and with the "every nigger is a star" earworm still at the mindophone it seems an appropriate moment to record here Lamar's question to 2Pac on "Mortal Man", the last track of To Pimp A Butterfly :
[Outro: Kendrick Lamar & 2Pac]
[Kendrick Lamar]
"I remember you was conflicted
Misusing your influence
Sometimes I did the same
Abusing my power, full of resentment
Resentment that turned into a deep depression
Found myself screaming in the hotel room
I didn’t wanna self destruct
The evils of Lucy was all around me
So I went running for answers
Until I came home
But that didn’t stop survivor’s guilt
Going back and forth trying to convince myself the stripes I earned
Or maybe how A-1 my foundation was
But while my loved ones was fighting the continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new one
A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination
Made me wanna go back to the city and tell the homies what I learned
The word was respect
Just because you wore a different gang color than mine's
Doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a black man
Forgetting all the pain and hurt we caused each other in these streets
If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us
But I don’t know, I’m no mortal man, maybe I’m just another nigga”
Shit and that’s all I wrote
I was gonna call it Another Nigga but, it ain’t really a poem, I just felt like it’s something you probably could relate to. Other than that, now that I finally got a chance to holla at you, I always wanted to ask you about a certain situa--, about a metaphor actually, you spoke on the ground. What you mean ‘bout that, what the ground represent?
[2Pac]
The ground is gonna open up and swallow the evil
[Kendrick Lamar]
Right
[2Pac]
That’s how I see it, my word is bond. I see--and the ground is the symbol for the poor people, the poor people is gonna open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people. Cause the rich people gonna be so fat, they gonna be so appetising, you know what I’m saying, wealthy, appetising. The poor gonna be so poor and hungry, you know what I’m saying it’s gonna be like… there might be some cannibalism out this mutha, they might eat the rich
[Kendrick Lamar]
Aight so let me ask you this then...
The Ground is a key term and reference for many, which is why we were so interested to hear it focussed on in this Kendrick Lamar album.
Here, we sometimes use that term for the undifferentiated matrix of interconnectedness out of which and into which...
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
