He lives in the same townhouse that his mother and father bought after moving north during the Great Migration, and there are still bits and pieces of their previous lives tucked in cabinets and drawers throughout the house. They sang to speak.Ī few months ago I visited my parents and stayed at my father’s home. When slaves sang, they did not do so for entertainment. One of the most famous of these songs went:Ī long way from home, a long way from home Their songs usually took on the subject of deliverance, and many verses were intensely biblical. They would sing by themselves and in groups. They would sing while they tilled muddy fields and harvested crops. There was no singing in formal settings, unless ordered, and there was no singing in the presence of whites who did not condone it. They did not sing constantly there were moments in bondage when singing was not only inappropriate but a threat to one’s life. If they made it to America, slaves would sing while they worked. Because how else could you express those feelings? So what did they do? They sang to one another. No idea what’s happening, no family everything stripped from them. Then I think about those mothers and fathers and friends and children on boats like Equiano’s, locked up on top of one another in the dark. I think about the pounding panic I’d feel when I realized I couldn’t find her, and the fear that would creep into my mind with every second we were apart. When I read it aloud I think about the times in my childhood when I would lose sight of my mother in a crowd. I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me.Įvery Juneteenth I try to remember his testimony. I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. In his autobiography, the ex-slave turned writer Olaudah Equiano described his time in the belly of a slave vessel: The cargo bays where they were jailed were breeding grounds for disease and death. Slaves on any given boat spoke many different languages, which made communicating with the person next to them difficult, if not impossible. A vessel could hold as many as 400 captive bodies, packed like spoons on top of one another. Lamar falls down from the post as he finishes his monologue that he was saying that the beginning of the video and then ending with him smiling.During the Middle Passage, Africans would sing to each other from inside slave freighters. The video ends with Lamar standing on top of a lamppost as a police officer shoots him down. Lamar then flies through California while his crew throws out money and dancers perform in the streets.
While police and destruction flood the streets as the music starts with Lamar rapping a new verse along with members of Black Hippy in a car being carried by four police officers. The video opens with shots of life in a neighborhood of Los Angeles, then shows a young African-American man being seen lying on the ground while Lamar is speaking in a voice-over. The song also received four Grammy nominations, only winning two latter including "Best Rap Song".
The song's accompanying music video premiered on the same day which has received critical acclaim and over 54 million views on YouTube. The song was released to radio stations as the album's fourth single on June 30, 2015.
The song features uncredited vocals from the song's co-producer Pharrell Williams during the chorus. Duckworth, Mark Spears, Pharrell WilliamsĪlright is a song by American rapper Kendrick Lamar, taken from his third album To Pimp a Butterfly. Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope
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