Trump once again floated the idea of running for U.S. president, just as he’d done in 1988 and 1999. But this time he seemed serious, even if liberal voters didn’t see him as a threat. There was no way that this guy—the reality show host with a notable catchphrase (“You’re fired”)—had what it took to be the leader of the free world. Sure, he’d proved his mettle as a real estate mogul, but aside from a few casinos and other tall buildings bearing his last name, Trump wasn’t a man most envisioned in the Oval Office one day—not even by a little bit. But slowly and surely, he started inching toward the White House, peeling off one act after another to create a new normal, a new ridiculous normal. In the spring of 2011, Trump had pressed Obama to release his official birth certificate to prove that he was born in the United States, and not Kenya, as some conspiracy theorists had claimed. For a while, President Obama ignored Trump’s calls for his birth certificate to be released. It was “silliness,” he once said, imploring the American public to stick with the issues at hand: the country was still climbing out of a financial hole, and to acknowledge Trump’s noise would be counterproductive. Yet Trump went on shows like The View and Fox News to denounce Obama with wild claims that catered to his voting base in battleground states. Trump claimed that Obama’s grandmother had witnessed Obama’s birth in Kenya, and that she was on tape confirming this notion. To the world outside of New York, this was the beginning of Donald Trump the caricature, and for the next five years, he’d use tactics like these—threats and baseless rhetoric—to rile up a section of America that didn’t like the country’s rapidly changing demographics and political structure.
At least Obama gave a damn, which couldn’t be said about his successor. When Trayvon died, Obama spoke on it through a personal lens. When twenty young pupils died as a result of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, he wept openly, and wiped away not only his tears, but the nation’s. By mid-2015, we were somewhat removed from the well-publicized police shootings of 2012 and 2014, but the pain was still raw as more unarmed blacks died at the hands of law enforcement. In fact, the carnage ramped up: though black men made up 2 percent of the U.S. population, they were nine times more likely to be killed by police officers that year, an alarming stat on its own, yet even more so given public attention on the issue. Racial tensions were high, despite having Obama in office. To be black at that time was to live in constant fear or anger over what was happening to people who looked like us. If you watched the news or scrolled through social media, it was easy to feel like your life didn’t matter, that even though the president tried to instill tranquility, there was a fifty-fifty chance that you could be the next hashtag, the next news segment on CNN, the next talking point in an Al Sharpton speech.
As Kendrick gained more popularity around this time, he started to recede further from the public eye. He backed away from social media and interviews weren’t as frequent. Although he made grand professional strides, Kendrick Lamar was the same Kendrick Lamar Duckworth from a tough city, the quiet and shy kid looking for peace and tranquility. Now he couldn’t just go out, not unless he wanted to cause a scene. He had to protect himself and his feelings, and for him that meant simply staying out of sight until he had to perform. He’d always been behind the scenes, and to be a star made him draw back. Such a move only heightened the mystery surrounding him and made his light shine brighter. He released music into an industry and to fans who demanded around-the-clock access to the rapper. Because his work was so resonant and so real, listeners felt like they knew him and wanted to feel a deeper connection. Conspiracy theories started swirling around the real meaning of his lyrics. Fans, critics, bloggers, and industry insiders loved to discuss Kendrick Lamar albums like current events on the news. He became barber shop talk: Which album is the best? Who do you think he was talking to on “These Walls”? Is he really a gospel rapper? What do you think Kendrick is working on now? Questions like these dot a typical Kendrick convo, and for any artist making an impact, this is essentially the dream they envision. They want listeners to dive into the music and form their own narratives about it. That’s the surest way to stay relevant in
