Imitation 7: The Finale

Kendrick Lamar – HiiiPower

Before I begin, I really hope you’ve heard this song.  If you haven’t, go check it out.  Now.  The movement is already upon us.  This young man is somebody we are all going to know about in time. 

“I got my finger on the muthafuckin’ pistol

Aimin’ it at a pig, Charlotte’s web is gonna miss you

My issue isn’t televised and you ain’t gotta tell the wise

How to stay on beat, because our life’s an instrumental

This is physical and mental, I won’t sugar coat it

You’d die from diabetes if these other niggas wrote it

And everything on TV just a figment of imagination

I don’t want plastic nation, dread that like a Haitian

While you muthafuckas waiting, I be off the slave ship

Building pyramids, writin’ my own hieroglyphs”

Take a moment to get your breath.  It’s genius, I know.  See, one interesting bit about this class is we didn’t talk about my favorite part of hip-hop: wordplay.  This wasn’t as prevalent until recent hip-hop, but man.  It’s a huge part of the genre.  This nearly five-minute excellence trip is on Kendrick’s album Section. 80, released in 2011.  It’s a song about the movement he fronts, HiiiPower, and it also confronts conspiracy theories of the past, present and future.  It’s a lot to swallow – I honestly don’t know what I’d do without rapgenius.com.  He mentions African-American civil rights activists who were assassinated throughout the song, and claims he is in place to be killed because of his revolution.  He uses metaphors, onomatopoeia, similes, assonance, hyperbole, and figurative and literal meanings.  It is, of course, lyrical poetry.  An obvious metaphor in my selection is that between “sugar coat it” and “diabetes.”  This line also holds the hyperbole.  The similes are in other sections of the song than listed.  Onomatopoeia is used later in the song when Kendrick says, “the reason that Kurt Cobain, loaded that clip and then said bang…”  Figurative meaning is used throughout the song, as can be seen in the metaphors and similes.  It’s hard to figure if this song is a confessional or a critique, but I will go with the latter, as it seems to be a look at modern society most importantly.  For once, I won’t be talking much about the context because this song holds too much talent within its structure and literary elements.  It is mostly end rhyme, with some internal rhymes.  This is one of my favorite songs.  I can’t relate to some of Kendrick’s music, since I did not grow up in a ghetto area, and a black community has never surrounded me.  However, this won’t stop me from marveling at his talent or learning from him.