DNA

Temidayo Johnson
3 min readMay 3, 2017

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Just a few days after I saw Humble., I saw the video to DNA. and I was just puzzled about the meaning of the video and the song itself. Most of kendrick’s videos are usually crafted to have a message and after watching a second time, I saw a few things that he was commenting on with the song.

As far I could see, the song and video makes a comment about Justice System, Crime, Black culture and Heritage.

The interrogation room and the lie detector to which Kendrick is attached to fascinates me. Noticeable things about the scene is that he is told his DNA stands Dead Nigga Association and the Polygraph starts recording even before he starts speaking at all.

This comments on the Justice system and how blacks are treated in America. Kendrick here is judged a “Dead Nigga” before interrogation begins and the polygraph shows he is lying without him speaking.

Kendrick also unveiled a new nickname “Kung fu Kenny” in the video. The new nickname seems fitting because he is in a Chinese attire throughout the video and the “Kenny” seems like a derivative from his name Kendrick. I also believe that Don Cheadle being in the video also give this a twist.

Kenny in Rush Hour 2

In Rush Hour 2, Don Cheadle plays a martial artist (Kung fu) with the name Kenny and the attire Cheadle had on seems very similar to that of Kendrick as Kung fu Kenny. I hope to see more of the strength, focus, discipline, concentration, form, enlightenment and skill that spills from being Kung fu Kenny to the Music of Kendrick Lamar. More Fire!

There are other scenes that point to other things

They don’t roll with broke niggas
Homage?
7 Grammys
Seen arguments that the signs shown by ScHoolboy Q is either gang signs or sign language

I would just end this by saying Kendrick’s work comes off as too real. Really nice work as always.

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