If you were to ask someone from Generation X if they know Kendrick Lamar, you would most likely get a blank stare. However, if you were to ask anybody from Generation Z the same question, they would most likely have heard many of his songs.  Kendrick Lamar is one of the most prominent rappers of the 2000s with 17x Grammies, 10x BET awards, 48 top songs (2 of which were #1 songs), and 4 #1 albums. Although Kendrick Lamar may seem like your average rapper just talking about drugs and gangs, by examining his lines of lyrics, you will realize that the faults of society deeply influence his songs and their lyrics. For example, in songs like “F*** Your Ethnicity(Link contains bad words)”(Section.80 2011), although the name does not invoke pleasant thoughts, Kendrick Lamar raps about the conflicts that are created by racial and ethnic stereotypes with lines like, “Racism is still alive, yellow tape and colored lines. F__k that, n___a look at that line, it's so diverse.” (lines 20-21). He also encourages listeners to look beyond these ethnic and racial stereotypes to create a better society for everyone. This racial ideology can also be seen in Lupe Fiasco's “Shoes'' (HOUSE 2020). with lines like, “White kid at the front let me go first 'cause I was black. Said it was only right. He was used to havin' head starts his entire life.” (lines 45-47)Although Lupe Fiasco is a little less aggressive with the title and the song's first lines, they share the same end goal in attempting to expose listeners to the discrimination these people can receive. 

Another song where Kendrick Lamar talks about the faults of society is “Keisha Song (Her Pain)(Link contains bad words)” (Section 80 2011). In this song, Kendrick raps about an impoverished woman named Keisha who had to resort to prostitution due to her financial status and drug problems. This song addresses issues of exploitation and degradation that women in those situations experience with verses like, “In her heart she hate it there but in her mind she made it where nothing really matters, so she hit the back seat and caught a knife in the bladder, left dead, r_ped in the street.” (lines 61-63) This song brings to light how women in those situations are objectified and sometimes killed. We can also see these patterns of objectification in the Roman empire, “The simplest way to ensure that men produced offspring of their own lineage was the suppression and control of the sexuality of their female mates.”  Honor killings done by Romans and Kendrick Lamar's “Keisha’s Song (Her Pain)” deeply relate to the idea of women being objectified. In many ways, Kendrick Lamar's music relates to this module and Othello.