Alright By Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Willaims

 

(Intro)

Alls my life I has to fight, n***a

Alls my life I

Hard times like, yah!

Bad trips like, yah!

Nazareth, I’m fucked up

Homie, you fucked up

But if God got us then we gon’ be alright

(Chorus)

N***a, we gon’ be alright

N***a, we gon’ be alright

We gon’ be alright

Do you hear me, do you

feel me? We gon’ be alright

N***a, we gon’ be alright

Huh? We gon’ be alright

N***a, we gon’ be alright

Do you hear me, do you feel

me? We gon’ be alright

 

(Verse 1)

Uh, and when I wake up

I recognize you’re lookin’ at

me for the pay cut

But homicide be looking at you from the face down

What MAC-11 even boom with the bass down

Schemin’! And let me tell you bout my life

Painkillers only put me in the twilight

Where pretty pussy and Benjamin is the highlight

Now tell my mama I love her but this what I like

Lord knows, twenty of ’em in my Chevy

Tell ’em all to come and get me, reapin’ everything I sow

So my karma come in heaven, no preliminary hearings on my record

I’m a motherfucking gangster in silence for the record, uh

Tell the world I know it’s too late

Boys and girls, I think I’ve gone cray

Drown inside my vices all day

Won’t you please believe w

hen I say

 

Pre-Chorus, Chorus, then the second verse begins.

 

Analysis:

Kendrick Lamar is respected in the rap community and loved in middle schools, high schools, and universities everywhere. With his strong messages and metaphorical genus, Kendrick Lamar’s Alright translates a world of drugs, temptation, and black suffering, into an anthem of resilience. In 2012 Lamar found mainstream success in the United States with his first album release, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, under the professional name we all know, Kendrick Lamar. The success of Lamar was not instant. Kendrick Lamar was born a raised in Compton, California, living in Section 8 housing with and around gangs, drugs, and extreme poverty. Lamar created his success, starting b

efore the artist turned 16, he traveled, learned, and produced music for almost a decade before creating a household name for himself . Unlike some of Lamars 2012 releases, his 2015 To Pimp A Butterfly album was inspired by funk and jazz music and departs from the west coast hip-hop style Lamar previously employed in his Good Kid, M.A.A.D City album. In particular the release of “Alright” has been used in the Black Lives Matter movement, meaning black students in particular may have emotions attached to the piece.

This song would be best utilized in an upper-level high school English class (11th or 12th grade). Upon presentation there is likely to be mixed reaction among students; some may not like the alternative hip-hop route, others may say the song is played out or too mainstream, and others may be loyal to the previously adopted west coast style of rap Kendrick Lamar was previously known for. Despite initial reactions, the song, or even the beginning portion of the song holds a great deal of deeper meaning for students to analyze. The song opens with a reference to

the novel The Color Purple, identifying this song as one that references black struggle in America; to further evoke this theme, Lamar references Nazareth and God about the eternal suffering but contrasts this with the message of hope, “But if God got us, we gon’ be alright.” Students would continue this analytic process by pulling out depictions of violence, temptation, greed, religion, fate, and more. These themes can be further processed to students’ lives through experiences, feelings, and morals to explain how these themes affect them, their lives, their education, their future, and their world. This discussion would be followed by a written reflective assignment, further analyzing our discussion, and developing connections in a written medium.

Under Stovall’s (2006) tenants of Critical Pedagogy, this le

sson aligns with all tenants a-f. The popularity of Kendrick Lamar allows for students of all backgrounds to be given an even beginning, to help incorporate previous knowledge and experiences into lessons, which applies to tenants a-c: “A. Students whose educational, economic, social, political, and cultural futures are most tenuous are helped to become intellectual leaders in the classroom. B. Students are apprenticed in a learning community rather than taught in an isolated and unrelated way. C. Students’ real-life experiences are legitimized as they become part of the official curriculum.” Often educational topics may allow for various levels of previous knowledge leaving vulnerable students behind from the start. Presenting “Alright” as part of a curriculum allows students to use their previous knowledge attained through life and employ it in an academic setting and may even help to unify the divide between education, community, and pop culture. It is up to the educator to properly engage with tenants d-f: “D. Teachers and students participate in a broad conception of literacy that incorporates both literature and oratory. E. Teachers and students engage in a collective struggle against the status quo.” “Alright” makes tenants d and e easy on the educator as long as they let students speak their thoughts and allow for creativity and individualism in their reflective and connective responses. Tenant f is personal to the teacher: “F. Teachers are cognizant of themselves as political beings. This tenant is more than a lesson plan, it is a way of educating appropriately, and takes self-reflection and recognition of biases

to even begin to properly employ the tenant. This lesson applies itself broadly to critical pedagogy through its malleability. “Alright” depicts concepts consistent with well know literary objects such as religion, temptation, greed, regret, and more, in addition to utilizing popular experiences of black Americans such as police brutality, drugs, violence, money, etc., allowing lesson plans about “Alright” can be utilized in different pedagogical structures. Using “Alright” could be especially beneficial in a co-generative dialogue between a student and facilitator to help bring that student into a more comfortable academic space by utilizing a medium they are familiar with. This familiarity with the lesson medium could be further employed using either/or co-teaching and content methods of reality pedagogy;

both methods would allow educators to take a step back and let students, who may be more familiar with the subject matter, to take the reigns either in the lesson or in a discussion.

 

By: J. Guider

Citations:

Alright Kendrick Lamar Tack 7 on To Pimp A Butterfly. Genius. https://genius.com/5048036

Emdin, C. (2016). For White folks who teach in the hood… and the rest of y’all too: Reality pedagogy and urban education. Beacon Press.

Emdin, C. (2016, September 1). Seven CS for Effective Teaching. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/seven-cs-for-effective-teaching

Lamar, Kendrick., Williams, Pharrell. “Alright.” To Pimp A Butterfly. Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records., Santa Monica, CA., 2015, Track no. 7. open.spotify.com/track

/3iVcZ5G6tvkXZkZKlMpIUs?si=8915a93500ba4d40

Stovall, D. (2006). We can relate: Hip-hop culture, critical pedagogy, and the secondary classroom. Urban Education, 41(6), 585-602.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, March 18). Kendrick Lamar. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendrick_Lamar