The Butterfly Effect

decision. That’s just what they did: police cruisers and businesses along West Florissant Avenue were set on fire. The riots went against the wishes of Michael Brown Sr., who said that destroying property wasn’t the way. He wanted a peaceful protest, just like the one on Staten Island, New York. “Let’s not just make some noise,” went a line from a family statement, “let’s make a difference.” It was too late, though; the people had suffered enough. The years of police harassment, the questionable traffic tickets that led to arrest warrants, the feeling that they didn’t belong in their own community. The people demanded answers. The pain, anger, and resentment finally bubbled over, and most musicians responded in kind. Before his show in St. Louis as one-half of Run the Jewels (with rapper-producer El-P), rapper Killer Mike tore into Ferguson officials, lamenting Mike Brown’s death and the grand jury decision. “Tonight, I got kicked on my ass when I listened to that prosecutor,” he told the crowd through tears. “I knew it was coming.… I have a twenty-year-old son and a twelve-year-old son and I’m so afraid for them.” In Seattle, Macklemore took to the streets to protest the Ferguson decision. Q-Tip, of the legendary rap group A Tribe Called Quest, joined protesters in New York City to demonstrate there. J. Cole released a song called “Be Free” that mourned Mike Brown’s death. “Can you tell me why,” the rapper lamented, “every time I step outside I see my niggas die?!”

In the middle of all this, Kendrick released a song called “i,” an upbeat ode to self-love that didn’t fit the social climate. Ferguson and New York City were raging, and some wondered why the rapper dropped such a happy-go-lucky track at that time. Black people were incensed and some wanted to lean into that anger: Our brothers and sisters are being murdered without consequence and someone needs to pay. As a community, black people are forgiving—perhaps too forgiving—and with the high-profile killings of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, and Tamir Rice, it seemed the black community had run out of fucks to give. Kendrick’s “i” wasn’t protest music, at least not in the way we’re used to hearing it. It wasn’t Sly and the Family Stone pushing you to “Stand!” or Gil Scott-Heron forecasting the revolution. It wasn’t even the music from Kendrick’s own backyard: Dr. Dre’s “The Day the Niggaz Took Over,” from his classic 1992 album, The Chronic, captured the mood of pissed-off black people who’d had enough of the Los Angeles Police Department and were ready to fight back. Ice Cube’s “We Had to Tear This Mothafucka Up” could’ve been a sequel to N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police,” a song that he cowrote. “I can’t trust a cracker in a blue uniform,” Cube proclaimed on the track. In fairness, Dre’s and Cube’s protest songs addressed an issue that hit very close to home: brutality from their own LAPD. And while Kendrick wasn’t directly affected by the issues in Ferguson, Cleveland, and Staten Island, and of course there’s nothing wrong with expressing love of self, “i” felt like a tone-deaf softball from one of the world’s most gifted lyricists. Whether Kendrick saw it or not, he was an artist whom people looked up to, with the kind of critical voice that was needed as racism escalated in 2014. To drop “i” at that time felt like a misfire. There was concern that Kendrick was going pop and started to feel himself a little. “i” perplexed those used to Kendrick’s navel-gazing introspection, and his jovial side would take some getting used to.

Kendrick heard the criticism. “I would hate to stay stagnant,” Kendrick told Fader. “I would hate for you to say there’s no growth. You’re supposed to innovate and not only challenge yourself but challenge your listeners and wow your listeners, and let them catch on. ’Cause when you’re an artist, nobody should dictate what you should do, you should just do it.” Indeed, there’s an unfair expectation on musicians to retread their best work, so when listeners heard “i,” some worried that Kendrick’s forthcoming album would stray too far from the brilliance of good kid, m.A.A.d city. In fans’ eyes, he had to top that record, or at least come close to it. We found out later that “i” was more than a re-created Isley Brothers song; Kendrick was emerging from a dark place that we didn’t even know about. If good kid addressed the trauma he endured as a teenager, “i” let us into the survivor’s guilt he suffered through as an adult. “I done been through a whole lot / Trial, tribulation, but I know God,” Kendrick rapped. “As I look around me / So many motherfuckers wanna down me.” We learn that he’d contemplated suicide in recent years, and that the now-famous musician was dealing with perceived mistrust in his circle. With his success came heightened expectations and new friends with their hands out.

As a result, the already-reluctant star recoiled even further. On the song, he mentioned his life as a story for younger kids to study (a direct request from his mom via voicemail on good kid, m.A.A.d city). It seemed Kendrick was thinking of his own mortality and took steps to think about a future he or others might not see. In an interview with Hot 97, Kendrick said he wrote “i” “for the homies that’s in the penitentiary right now… for these kids that come up to my shows with these slashes on they wrists, saying they don’t want to live no more.” Kendrick had been under this kind of pressure since the ascendance of good kid, m.A.A.d city: he was no longer just the voice of Compton, he was now the voice of his generation, just like his idol Tupac Shakur before him.

So yes, “i” was noble in that regard, but it simply wasn’t the right time for it. The families of Trayvon, Eric, Mike, and Tamir needed our love