ISSUE II
JANUARY 2025
JANUARY 2025
Accidental Theorist: KENDRICK LAMAR
What would a Kendrick Lamar theory of international affairs look like?
By Ivan Pech Luna
Most casual music fans first recognized Kendrick Lamar's genius after he decisively bested Drake in what became the most talked-about rap battle of the last 25 years. This was followed by the release of his sixth studio album, “GNX,” his announcement as the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show headliner, and the reveal of a world tour with SZA. Through these milestones, Lamar solidified his place as the most influential artist of his generation. But Lamar has been influential for a long time, with powerful and meaningful music; much of it references his hometown of Compton, California, a primarily working-class, black neighborhood outside Los Angeles. Lamar mines these experiences to comment on contemporary politics in the US and globally.
It also happens that Kendrick is the second in our series on accidental IR theorists. (Our first was Diego Maradona.)
Kendrick’s journey to becoming a theorist was anything but straightforward. He was an excellent student in high school, graduating with straight A’s, but chose to forgo college to pursue a music career. Despite this, his work's artistic merit and broader cultural impact were recognized in 2018 when he became the first rapper awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In 2015, American political scientist Marc Lynch, writing in The Washington Post about “the political theory of Kendrick Lamar,” remarked that “... He has the equivalent of enough peer-reviewed journal articles on his CV to satisfy the stoniest heart of a job search committee.”
What would a Kendrick Lamar theory of international affairs look like?
Lamar points to the effects of institutional racism and the legacy of slavery on black people. He explicitly critiques global capitalism in his lyrics. Familiar figures of that struggle inspired him: Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X. The latter’s politics inspired Kendrick’s breakout 2013 album, “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.” Maya Angelou, a prominent American poet and writer who at one point abandoned the US for Ghana and Egypt, features on the album (on the song, “Sing about me, I’m dying of thirst”). At one point, Kendrick decamped to Ghana. A visit to Mandela’s former jail inspired “To Pimp a Butterfly.” One song on the album is a homage to Mandela.
But like most political and public figures, Lamar’s politics have contradictions. His agreement to perform in the Super Bowl seems at odds with his condemnation of global capitalism. Similarly, his decision to travel to and perform in Rwanda only strengthens President Paul Kagame’s soft power politics to promote his authoritarianism as a form of Pan-Africanism.
In sum, Kendrick has consistently navigated the complexities of colonialism, pan-Africanism, and the privilege of being a U.S. citizen. As another rapper, Noname, pointed out on her album “Sundial,” how can the most influential artist of his generation perform at the biggest sporting event in the U.S. without addressing Colin Kaepernick’s blackballing by the NFL for his calling out of racist police practices and the NFL’s endorsement, at a price, of the US’s military-industrial complex? Noname raps the same about Rihanna, Beyonce, and then Kendrick:
Noname argues that the America celebrated by the NFL and publicly protested by Kaepernick arms police in Compton and Israeli soldiers in Palestine. Tellingly, Noname practices more consistent radical politics: she combines her strident lyrics with a radical book club with branches around the US, including its prisons.
Lynch's 2015 essay provides the best summary of Lamar’s political theory. Lynch argues that Kendrick’s Compton upbringing and skepticism of leaders and power shape his political vision. He rejects glorifying violence, is wary of solidarity politics, and prioritizes self-criticism, even of his community. Lamar “urgently wants change, but does not want rage to consume him, power to corrupt him or violence to cut short the lives of more people. His ethos of self-critique offers another path towards rebuilding shattered communities and constructing new forms of solidarity,” wrote Lynch.
While Kendrick’s lyrics have consistently delivered a powerful message, his actions have often failed to match that intensity. As a result, in Kendrick, we see an American mind caught in the grip of colonial discourse, unsure of how to navigate the corporate world. His lyrics reflect an awareness of the stakes, but are they merely a performance? In the global context, he appears to be a man ensnared by his dilemmas, even as he shows he cares.
Ivan Pech Luna is completing an MA in International Affairs at The New School.