Last night, Kendrick Lamar took home two Grammy Awards — Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance — for his single “i.” Today, he dropped a racially-charged rager against discrimination and hatred. Was it a response? A celebration? The next chapter to “i?”
“The Blacker the Berry” starts off with the words “I'm the biggest hypocrite of 2015…” over dark beats, the flipside of of “i” with the same social consciousness and heightened urgency. “I know you hate me as much as you hate yourself,” he rhymes, hearkening back to the theme in “i”: “I love myself.”
“Once I finish this, witnesses will convey just what I mean / I mean it's evident I'm irrelevant to society / That's what you're telling me, penitentiary would only hire me / Curse me till I'm dead / Church me with your fake prophesying that I'm 'a be another slave in my head… the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.”
The single cover art features a black woman with two infants suckling her breasts.
Give it a spin, do you like it or love it?