Contrasting Moral Journeys in Contemporary Music

Super Bowl LIX was amazing, but not because of the football, or the commercials. It was the 13-minute half-time tour de force of political theology and protest art, brought to you by Kendrick Lamar. Acting like a parable to offer more to those who already get it, and to take away from those who don’t get it at all, the performance was so much more than a petty way to settle a rap beef.

But what exactly was going on? Today’s episode is an introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar. Evan Rosa welcomes Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Femi joined Dissect Podcast host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar.

About Femi Olutade

Femi Olutade is the lead writer for Season 5 of Dissect, an analysis of Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN. He’s arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Femi joined host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar.

Show Notes

• Femi Olutade’s Theology of Kendrick Lamar
• Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Half-Time Show (Video)
• Kendrick Lamar’s Half-time Show Lyrics (Full)
• Season 5 of Dissect: Kendrick Lamar's DAMN.

Kendrick Lamar’s Political Theology as a Diss Track to America

Super Bowl LIX was amazing, but not because of the football, or the commercials. It was the 13 minute half-time tour de force that Kendrick Lamar offered the world.

Uncle Sam introduces the show, the quote “Great American Game.” A playstation controller appears. Is the game football? Video game? Or some other game? Kendrick appears crouched on a car—dozens of red, white, and blue dancers emerge, evoking both the American flag which they eventually form, as well as the gang wars between bloods and crips—or as Kendrick says in Hood Politics, “Demo-crips” and “Re-blood-icans”

And what ensues is an intricately choreographed set of layered meanings, allusions, hidden references and Easter eggs—not all of which have been noticed, not to mention explained or understood.

You can find links to the performance and the lyrics in the show notes.

Femi Olutade on the Theology of Kendrick Lamar

Today’s episode is an introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar. And joining me is Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. As a lifelong fan of hip hop, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

And I became familiar with Femi’s work in 2021, while listening to a podcast called Dissect—which analyzes albums line by line, note by note. They cover mostly hip hop, but the season on Radiohead’s In Rainbows is also incredible. Femi joined host Cole Cushna to co-write a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar, which repays so many replays. Forward, AND backward. Yes, you can play the album backwards and forwards like a mirror and they tell two different stories, one about wickedness and pride, and the other about weakness, love, and humility.

If you want to jump to my conversation with Femi about Kendrick Lamar’s Political Theology, please do, just jump ahead a few minutes.

Not Just a Diss Track to Drake, but a Diss Track to America

But I wanted to offer a few preliminaries of my own to help with this most recent context of the Super Bowl halftime performance.

Because almost immediately, it was interpreted as nothing more than one of the pettiest, egotistical, and overkill ways to settle a rap beef between Kendrick and another hip hop artist, Drake. Some fans celebrated this. Others found it at best irrelevant and confusing, and at worst an offensive waste of an opportunity to make a larger statement before an audience of 133 million viewers.

In my humble opinion, both get it wrong. Kendrick Lamar simply does not work this way.

If it was the biggest diss track of all time, it wasn’t aimed merely at Drake, but America. And if it was offensive, it was because of its moral clarity and force, striking a prophetic chord operating similar to a parable.

Jesus and Kendrick on Prophecy and Parables

Parables, according to Jesus, are meant to give more to those who already have, and take away from those who already have nothing (Matthew 13:13). Because, as the prophet Isaiah says, “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand” (Isaiah 6:9).

At this point, it’s possible that you’re entirely confused, and if so, I’d invite you to hang with me and lean in. Watch it again, listen more closely. Because rap, according to Jay Z, is a lean-in genre. You can’t understand it without close examination, without contextual, bottom-up, historical appreciation, or without a willingness to be educated about what it’s like to be Black in America.

But I guarantee you that in Kendrick Lamar’s outstanding choreographed prophetic theatre, there’s much more going on—”there’s levels to it”—to quote Lamar.

You Picked the Right Time, but the Wrong Guy

And if you want it clearly spelled out for you—a cleaner, smoother, tighter, more palatable, less subtle social commentary that can be abstracted from history, circumstance, and the genre of rap itself so that it can be rationally evaluated—well, you’re occupying the exact position Kendrick is critiquing, which he prophetically predicts in the very performance itself. As he warns us:

The revolution 'bout to be televised You picked the right time, but the wrong guy

Still, what was that?? First, it’s public performance art, so just let it land. Watch it again. Notice something new. Submit yourself to it. Let it change you.

The Black American Experience in Hip Hop and Kendrick Lamar

And if you really want to understand it, you need to be open to the possibility that some social commentary can only be understood in light of certain lived experiences. In this case, at least the Black American experience. And then, rather than demanding that Kendrick explain it to you in your own vernacular, listen to what he’s already said. Lean in an listen to his whole body of work, learn his story, expertly rendered in jaw-dropping lyrical performance. Drive with him through his childhood streets of Compton on Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. Journey with him from caterpillar to butterfly on To Pimp a Butterfly, look in the mirror presented before you in the Pulitzer-prize winning DAMN., hear out his messy psyche laid bare in Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, take a ride with him in GNX…

In the days following Kendrick’s super bowl performance, J Kameron Carter, Professor of African American Studies, Comparative Literature, and Religion at the University of California at Irvine, called for a more in-depth study of the 13-minute performance, noting that:

“[B]lack performance carries within it an interrogation of the question of country as the problem and question of US political theology and the legacy of Christian empire.”

This episode isn’t meant to close any books or offer a full explanation of Kendrick’s performance, let alone his music, but just to lean in, and to quote Kendrick, “salute truth and the prophecy.”

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Femi Olutade
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily Brookfield
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give