Kendrick’s Personal Reckoning on The Blacker the Berry

The song channels Dot’s guilt over surviving Compton’s streets while friends perished. By admitting his violent impulses, he implicates himself in cycles he condemns, blurring victim and perpetrator.

Taken from an excerpt from the upcoming Milestones series on To Pimp a Butterfly, releasing next month.

“The Blacker the Berry” is another reference to 2Pac, who declared on “Keep Ya Head Up”: “Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” But while 2Pac recorded “Keep Ya Head Up” to celebrate the beauty of Black women, Kendrick Lamar takes a darker turn: “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice / The blacker the berry, the bigger I shoot,” he raps, twisting 2Pac’s words to embody the perspective of a racist police officer. “The Blacker the Berry” carries none of the hope of “Alright,” the progressivism of “i,” or the pride of “King Kunta.” Instead, it is a furious and pessimistic track. Its writing began in 2012, just after the murder of Trayvon Martin, as Kendrick Lamar, on his tour bus, flipped through TV channels and learned that a 17-year-old Black boy had been shot dead.

“It ignited a new rage in me. I remembered what I felt. Being harassed, watching my friends get killed,” he recalls.

Over a Boi-1da beat that abandons the funk and jazz of the rest of the album in favor of jagged rhythms, “The Blacker the Berry” plunges into the hellscape of racism at its most brutal.

“My hair is nappy, my dick is big/My nose is round and wide/You hate me, don’t you?/You hate my people/Your plan is to terminate my culture/You’re fuckin’ evil, I want you to recognize that I’m a proud monkey [...] The plot is bigger than me, it’s generational hatred/It’s genocism, it’s grimy, little justification,” Kendrick raps.

It is also his most controversial, one of the most explicitly confrontational songs of his career. Repeatedly calling himself “the biggest hypocrite of 2015,” he delivers three lines at the song’s close that spark intense debate:

“So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street?/When gang banging made me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite!”

Many artists and journalists interpret Kendrick’s words as a critique of the Black community, which “weeps” when one of its own is killed but remains unable to address “Black-on-Black crime”—murders of Black men by other Black men, often tied to gang wars. Critics of the Black Lives Matter movement frequently weaponize this issue to highlight alleged contradictions and divert attention from systemic racism. While Black Lives Matter activists focus on police violence rather than intra-community crime, the topic remains urgent, which is why Kendrick confronts it. He has addressed it since the start of his career: in 2005, he participated in the documentary Bastards of the Party, directed by Cle Sloan¹ and produced by Antoine Fuqua, for which he wrote the song “My People” with Jay Rock. The film explores Sloan’s journey from the Athens Park Bloods to activism aimed at curbing gang violence.

The documentary condemns black-on-black crime, with K-Dot and Rock’s lyrics amplifying its message:

“I refuse to be a statistic, but changin’ my community ain’t realistic/Show me an African American doin’ right, I'll show you one that'll kill his ass tonight [...] We used to run from the KKK/But now we runnin’ from our brothers that be holdin' them ‘K’s/Man, never thought there'd be days like this/Can’t trust your homies that you’re hangin’ with.”

Recent FBI statistics show that in 2015, the year To Pimp a Butterfly was released, Black perpetrators killed 89.3% of Black homicide victims. The issue resurfaced after Nipsey Hussle’s murder in March 2019, shot by a Black man outside his clothing store. It’s also central to Jill Leovy’s acclaimed book Ghettoside (2015), which examines violence in South Central’s Black neighborhoods.

Kendrick’s lyrics on “The Blacker the Berry” align with his 2015 statement to Billboard:

“What happened to Michael Brown should’ve never happened. Never. But when we don’t respect ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Not with riots or protests, but within.”

“The dumbest shit I’ve ever heard from a Black man,” rapper Azealia Banks fired back on Twitter. Kid Cudi added: “Dear Black artists, stop belittling the Black community as if you’re a God to all niggas.” Critics accused Kendrick not of addressing Black-on-Black crime but of doing so at an inopportune moment, shifting focus away from urgent issues. Was he unintentionally aiding those who dismiss Black Lives Matter as fleeting? Or is the conservative white America terrified of revolt?

Under fire, Kendrick clarified on NPR: “It’s not me pointing at my community; it’s me pointing at myself.” In a Guardian interview, he went further: “This is in my blood because I’m Trayvon Martin. I’m all those kids.”

At the 2016 Grammys, after performing “Alright,” he paid homage to Trayvon with a new verse, one of his darkest and angriest. He spat out his disgust and bitterness, describing the trauma of Martin’s death and the open wound of American racism:

“February 26th, I lost my life too/It’s like I’m here in a dark dream/Nightmare, hear screams recorded/Say that it sounds distorted but they know who it was/That was me yelling for help when he drowned in his blood/Why didn’t he defend himself? Why couldn’t he throw a punch?/And for our community, do you know what this does?/Add to a trail of hatred/2012 was taped for the world to see/Set us back 400 years/This is modern slavery/The reason why I’m by your house/You threw your briefcase all on the couch/I plan on creeping through your damn door and blowing out/Every piece of your brain ’til your son jumped in your arms/Cut the engine then sped off in the rain [...] HiiiPower, one time, you see it/HiiiPower, two times, you see it/Conversation for the entire nation, this is bigger than us.”

The first-person perspective of “The Blacker the Berry” reflects Kendrick’s own experience as a Black man in America—one who has lost friends to violence, felt rage and vengeance, and nearly perpetuated the cycle himself. His bitterness lingers:

“When Chad was killed, I can’t disregard the emotion of me relapsing and feeling the same anger that I felt when I was 16, 17—when I wanted the next family to hurt because you made my family hurt. Them emotions were still running in me, thinking about him being slain like that. Whether I’m a rap star or not, if I still feel like that, then I’m part of the problem rather than the solution.”

To answer these personal struggles, Kendrick closes To Pimp a Butterfly with a poem on “Mortal Man,” revealing the album’s symbolism: a journey from chaos to peace for himself and his community.

The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it.

Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it.

In order to protect itself from this mad city,

While consuming its environment,

The caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive.

One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him.

But praises the butterfly.

The butterfly represents the talent, the thoughtfulness.

And the beauty within the caterpillar,

But having a harsh outlook on life,

The caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak.

And figures out a way to pimp it to his own benefits.

Already surrounded by this mad city.

The caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon.

Which institutionalizes him,

He can no longer see past his own thoughts; he’s trapped.

When trapped inside these walls, certain ideas take root, such as

Going home and bringing back new concepts to this mad city.

The result?

Wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant.

Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations,

That the caterpillar never considered,

Ending the internal struggle.

Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different,

They are one and the same.

After reciting the poem, Kendrick asks Tupac what he thinks of his words but receives no answer. To Pimp a Butterfly ends with an unresolved question, and 2Pac vanishes again after his brief resurrection. Now aware he must use his fame to spread peace, Kendrick reluctantly takes up his idol’s mantle, fulfilling Tupac’s plea from five years earlier: “Don’t let my music die.”

Alone at the helm, the Compton rapper sets his course for Africa.