Reflections on Dissections: S5E15 — “XXX.” pt. 2a
A satire by Kendrick Lamar
< Previous: S5E15 — “XXX.” pt. 1b
This post is a companion to Dissect Podcast Season 5 Episode 15
In our last post, we discussed the first few lines from the opening verse of “XXX.” in which an emotionally distraught friend called Kenny after the friend’s only son had been killed because of an unpaid debt. We learned that the friend was convinced that Kenny is anointed, which seems to connect Kenny to biblical figures like King David and Jesus the Christ who received God’s Spirit upon them so that they could lead God’s people.
The fact that the friend is making a connection between anointing and leadership inspired by the Spirit of God is immediately confirmed in the subsequent lines where Kenny raps:
He was lookin’ for some closure
Hopin’ I could bring him closer
To the spiritual
The friend’s desire to be brought “closer to the spiritual” also seems to indicate his request for Kenny to “show me how to overcome” is really about the friend’s struggle against spiritual evil. In the last post, we discussed how the choice of the word “overcome” seems to be connected to the usage of that word in the New Testament, most notably in Jesus’s claim that he had overcome the world, Jesus’s call for his followers to overcome, and the culminating vision in which Jesus’s followers overcame the serpent-dragon by laying down their lives rather than betraying Jesus’s example of forgiveness, humility and sacrificial love. Given that Kenny is an anointed king and a prophet upon whom God has placed His Spirit, we have every reason to believe that Kenny knows exactly how he should respond to his friend’s request to “show me how to overcome.” However, it quickly becomes apparent that Kenny is either unwilling or unable to say what he should.
To the spiritual, my spirit do know better, but I told him
“I can’t sugarcoat the answer for you, this is how I feel…”
With these pivotal lines, Kenny makes a deliberate choice to reject the leading of God’s Spirit toward forgiveness, humility, and sacrificial love. Instead of conveying what his spirit knows to be true, Kenny decides to say what he feels. This instinctive reaction to say what he feels hearkens back to the track “FEEL.”, where Kenny expressed a repetitive litany of all of the things he felt. One of the most intense feelings expressed on that song was the feeling that he was boxing innumerable opponents including demons, Church, White people, Black people, and many others. “FEEL.” thus served as the initial seedbed for Kenny’s feeling to lead him into a mentality that engages in violent confrontations. On “XXX.” these seeds have blossomed into thoughts of murderous revenge as he tells his friend.
If somebody kill my son, that mean somebody gettin’ killed.
Kenny here declares that if he was in his friend’s shoes he would murder his son’s killer as an act of retaliation. Kenny’s intuition towards retaliation is something he expressed earlier on the track “ELEMENT.” when he rapped:
I’m willin’ to die for this shit
I done cried for this shit, might take a life for this shit
Put the Bible down and go eye for an eye for this shit- Kendrick Lamar from “ELEMENT.”
During our discussion of “ELEMENT.”, we detailed how Kenny justified his inclination toward violence by referencing the Law of Retaliation from the commandments given by Moses in the Old Testament. Kenny chose to go “eye for an eye” despite the fact that such laws were intended to limit retaliation and despite the fact that Jesus commanded his followers in the New Testament to turn the other cheek if someone struck them in the face. Here in “XXX.”, Kenny once again rejects Jesus’s teachings on forgiveness and sacrificial love so that he can act in accordance with his own feelings.
Tell me what you do for love, loyalty, and passion of
All the memories collected, moments you could never touch
Here, Kenny reveals that his inclination toward violent retaliation is driven by his feelings of love, loyalty, and passion. Normally, we would tend to think of love, loyalty, and passion as positive feelings. However, in this case, we see that Kenny’s love and loyalty to a family member might lead Kenny to destructive behavior because Kenny is unwilling to love his enemies. Kenny’s love and loyalty thus prove to fall short of the unconditional love that God shows to humanity. This unconditional love for one's friends and enemies is what Jesus commanded of his disciples in his teachings on the Kingdom of God.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not people from all nations do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
- Matthew 5:43–48
When we consider Jesus's command for his followers to be perfected to maturity in their love for their friends and enemies, we can now recognize that the love that Kenny expressed to his girl on the previous track “LOVE.” was still an immature love. Because Kenny has proven incapable of loving his enemies, we can also conclude that Kenny’s top loyalty is still toward his family, his friends and himself, rather than to God, just like we discussed when we looked at the track “LOYALTY.” Hence, while love and loyalty are often positive feelings, they can lead humans to destructive tendencies if their love and loyalty are not ultimately directed towards God.
One additional reason why Kenny’s love and loyalty are feeding his inclination towards murder is that those two feelings have now been combined with passion. In many ways, passion is the feeling that best expresses what Kenny is going through on “XXX.”.
In modern times, the word “passion” is most frequently used to discuss intellectual passions, which are feelings of intense devotion to a given pursuit, interest, or cause. This usage stems from the fact that at the most basic level, passion refers to an intense and overwhelming emotion or desire, often an extreme version of love but also an extreme version of hate.
While the word “passion” can have positive or negative connotations in English, it is interesting to note that in the New Testament, each time that the Greek word “pathēma” is translated with English word “passion” it has a clearly negative connotation which is closely associated the flesh or animal nature.
For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
- Romans 7:5
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
- Galatians 5:24
This primarily negative usage of the word “passion” is consistent with the fact that the Greek word “pathēma” and the English word “passion” originally meant “suffering”. This connection between intense emotions and suffering arose from ancient thinkers who observed that humanity is often left insatiable by the most intense forms of passionate devotion. As a result of this dissatisfaction, ancient thinkers concluded that continuously feeling these intense emotions is a form of torture or suffering.
Furthermore, this usage of “passion” to mean suffering explains why the memory of Jesus’s arrest, trial, and execution are traditionally referred to as “the Passion of the Christ.” While Kenny’s passion for the memory of lost family members inspires him to kill his enemies, the memory of Jesus’ passion is meant to inspire his followers to forgive their enemies and make peace. Hence, every year, Christians around the world remember the Passion of the Christ on Good Friday.
Put another way, Good Friday is the day to remember how the destructive force of our emotional passions led to Jesus’s physical Passion on the cross. Fittingly, Good Friday is also the day that DAMN. was released. All of these connections to intense feelings, suffering, and Jesus’ death on Good Friday suggest that passion, i.e. suffering, is at the heart of what Kenny is feeling on “XXX.” Passion is what would drive Kenny to detail his explicit murder fantasy.
I’ll wait in front a nigga’s spot and watch him hit his block
I’ll catch a nigga leavin’ service if that’s all I got
I’ll chip a nigga, then throw the blower in his lap
Walk myself to the court like, “Bitch, I did that!”
Here Kenny plots a theoretical act of retaliation in which Kenny will hide outside of the house of his son’s killer and wait for the man to come out so that Kenny can shoot him. If Kenny’s enemy has his guard up and makes it impossible for Kenny to have a good shot outside of the man’s house, Kenny will then hide outside of the church building where the man attends a service on Sunday and wait for the man to leave the service.
In an act of blatant defiance to Jesus’s teaching, Kenny will then “chip” or shoot the man dead right in front of the church building which is dedicated to teaching people to follow Jesus’s commandments. After the man slumps over, Kenny will throw the blower, aka gun, in the man’s lap and make no attempt to conceal his actions. Rather Kenny will proudly march to the courthouse and tell the judge “Bitch, I’m the one who murdered that man down the street.”
In addition to not giving a care about going to prison for murder, Kenny also shows nor remorse about taking the life of another Black man as he raps:
Ain’t no Black Power when your baby killed by a coward
I can’t even keep the peace, don’t you fuck with one of ours
It be murder in the street, it be bodies in the hour
Ghetto bird be on the street, paramedics on the dial
Let somebody touch my momma
Touch my sister, touch my woman
Touch my daddy, touch my niece
Touch my nephew, touch my brother
Here Kenny references the Black Power movement which splintered from the mainstream Civil Rights Movement in 1966 after a growing number of Black people became frustrated with the Civil Rights Movement’s commitment to non-violence. The Black Power movement advanced an ideology that encouraged Black people to cultivate greater racial pride through the creation of social, political, and economic systems that work for the primary benefit of Black people.
The phrase “Black Power” is supposed to remind Black individuals that they must take care of other Black individuals if the community ever hopes to gain social, political, and economic power in America. However, we see that due to Kenny’s inability to remain peaceful and forgive his enemies, Kenny’s intuition will lead him to undermine the central tenets of the Black Power movement, particularly if he ever feels the need to preserve the lives of his loved ones. Kenny’s failure to uphold the tenets of the Black Power ideology are further complicated by the fact that so many people in the community look to Kenny as an anointed prophet. As a result, it is likely that Kenny will eventually lead others to join him in undermining the very fabric of society.
You should chip a nigga, then throw the blower in his lap
After listing all of the family members for whom Kenny would take revenge, Kenny repeats the earlier line about shooting his enemy and leaving the gun in his enemy’s lap. However, this time rather than using the first person “I will” Kenny uses the second person “You should.” This switch to “you should” clearly indicates that Kenny is no longer talking theoretically. Rather, Kenny is now suggesting that cold-blooded murder is how to overcome. With these lines, Kenny thus fulfills the X-rated title of the track by directly inciting his listener to commit an act of violence. Indeed we are immediately reminded that Kenny has a tremendous amount of influence over his listeners as he ends the phone call by saying:
Matter fact, I’m ‘bout to speak at this convention
Call you back —
Upon hearing that Kenny is about to speak at a convention, we might think that Kenny is going to continue inciting other listeners to commit acts of violence. We are thus surprised when we hear the following audio segment from Kenny’s convention speech.
Alright, kids, we’re gonna talk about gun control
Here we have the most clearly ironic moment of the entire album. After advising his friend to get a gun and commit murder, Kenny shows up to a convention and lectures a group of kids about the need to limit access to guns. In case we missed the irony, Kenny follows this statement by whispering “pray for me”. We then hear voices interject by saying “Damn!” as if they themselves are shocked at Kenny’s sudden turn.
This degree of exaggerated irony in such a pivotal track along with a direct reference to the album’s title establishes that both “XXX.” and the album as a whole is meant to be heard as a satire. In literature, satire is a genre that utilizes exaggerated irony by professing to accept or approve of the very things the author wishes to criticize. In doing so, the author aims to expose the absurdity of human vices, particularly as it relates to contemporary politics.
As we’ve seen thus far in “XXX”, Kenny has clearly professed his acceptance and approval of the use of violence to avenge and protect one’s own group from threats posed by others. Meanwhile, Kenny’s convention speech not only shows his own hypocrisy, but also the hypocrisy in the politics of gun control in America.
While we could arrive at these conclusions about Kendrick’s use of satire just by listening to the song’s lyrics, Kendrick also directly informed us of this literary design during his performance of “XXX.” at the 2018 Grammy Awards. There, Kenny rapped the entire first verse of “XXX.”, including the line “Matter fact, I’m ‘bout to speak at this convention. Call you back.” However, in the performance, Kendrick did not say the ironic line about gun control. Instead, Kendrick stood in front of a giant screen that slowly unveiled the words, “THIS IS A SATIRE BY KENDRICK LAMAR.”
The fact that Kendrick chose to write DAMN. as a satire makes even more sense when we consider the fact that the Book of Jonah — which DAMN. seems to be directly inspired by — is also written as a satire and uses exaggerated irony to critique the society from which the prophet originates. Moreover, the Book of Jonah, just like DAMN. in general and “XXX.” in particular, is about a prophet who rebels against God because he does not want to forgive the enemies who killed his people.
This bridge section is thus a watershed moment in which we begin to gain clarity about how we are meant to understand the album as a whole. This initial moment of clarity then opens up into an even more revealing section which suggests a complete change in perspective — a perspective in which we are able to see chaos on earth from a higher vantage point. Within the Bible, such moments of new perspective often come within a narrative genre that is referred to as Apocalyptic literature. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek word “apocalypsis” which means “revelation”.
Narratives within the apocalypse literary genre normally feature a prophetic figure who is taken by an angel up into the heavens so that the prophet can see the chaotic events on earth from God’s perspective in heaven. This new perspective thus reveals the true nature of the spiritual conflict on earth.
In “XXX.”, this change of perspective is first signaled by an abrupt musical transition from the alarming chaos of the first half into the more pensive tone of the second half. Moreover, the role of angelic messenger seems to be filled by Bono, the lead singer of the famed Irish rock band, U2.
At first glance, it might be surprising that a song that began as a stereotypically violent hip hop song now takes on a soft rock sound led by 56-year-old Irishman. However, much like Rihanna’s feature in “LOYALTY.”, Kendrick seems to have chosen to feature Bono and U2 because their personal histories help to illuminate the core themes of the track. In particular, it seems likely they Kendrick chose to feature U2 on such a pivotal track because, like Kendrick, Bono and his bandmates in U2 are devoted Christians who have consistently woven spiritual themes and gospel-inspired messages into their music while still maintaining mainstream appeal. In most cases, U2’s biblical references are subtle enough to be missed by casual listeners. However, on several occasions, U2 has released songs with overtly Christian titles and lyrics such as their 2004 track “Yahweh”, which just like the track “YAH.” on DAMN., has a title which refers to the personal name of Israel’s God.
In addition to influencing his lyrics, Bono’s faith has constantly driven him to the forefront of numerous philanthropic and social justice causes including work to end poverty, hunger, and the spread of AIDS throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. One of Bono’s most significant initiatives was his campaign for the United Kingdom, the United States and other world powers to forgive the economic debt of the world’s poorest countries. This campaign attracted worldwide attention when Bono partnered with a Church movement called Jubilee 2000.
The name Jubilee is taken from a particular commandment that God gave to the Israelites through Moses.
“You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field. On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.”
- Leviticus 25:8–13
The Jubilee commandment stipulated that every 50 years the Israelites had to forgive all debts, release everyone held in debt slavery, and restore any ancestral land to those who had lost the land due to debts. In effect, the year of Jubilee was meant to prevent the most vulnerable members of society from remaining in perpetual poverty and prevent the rich from perpetually profiting off of the misfortune of others. It is this commitment to releasing the poor from debt that Jesus was proclaiming at the beginning of his public ministry when he read from the scroll of Isaiah where it said:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
- Luke 4:18–19
Hence, Jesus’s teaching about the Good News of the kingdom of God began with a reminder that God’s people are commanded to forgive the debts of those suffering from poverty. This is a fact that seems to have inspired Bono to campaign for rich countries to forgive the debts of poor countries. Thus, just like the music production of the second half of “XXX.” contrasts with the music production of the first half, Bono’s real-life words and actions contrast with words and actions of people like Kenny, Rihanna, the gang members from the first verse of “XXX.” and the servant from Jesus’s parable — all of whom would prefer to kill or imprison someone than forgive a debt. The moral clarity that Bono has displayed throughout his public life thus makes him the perfect person to illuminate the spiritual reality of the chaos on America’s streets as will see in the following post.
Resources:
- “Ignorance Is Bliss” music video
- Kendrick’s performance at the 2018 Grammy Awards
- “Gospel of the Kingdom” video by the Bible Project
- “Apocalypse” video by the Bible Project
- “Overview: Luke 1–9” by the Bible Project
