Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ Lyrics Chanted by Cleveland Students at Protest [VIDEO]
When Kendrick Lamar dropped his sophomore album To Pimp A Butterfly in March, it was a call to social justice and an observation of racism, sexism and other forms of oppression expressed through a hip-hop lens like never before.
While it was reflective of the social climate and the opposite of contemporary hip-hop, still the album spoke volumes from the dance floor to the classroom. In a video, which recently surfaced online, Cleveland State University students chanted the hook to one of the albums most motivating tracks. On Sunday (July 27), while marching at a #BlackLivesMatter event in Cleveland, students shouted, "We gonna be alright."
The students were reportedly directing K.Dot’s powerful words to the police outside of CSU. In the midst of the protest a cop allegedly slammed a younger protestor on the ground and prompted others to surround the police cars. The chant then goes from “Alright” lyrics to “aint no power like the power of me.”
The video is another example of the Compton rapper’s influence on society and the profoundness of his lyricism. In fact, the two-time Grammy-winning rapper's albums seem to have had so much affect on the youth, professors across the nation are using the lyrics as learning tools.
For example, an English teacher at High Tech High School in Bergen County, N.J., got his students to engage in the classroom by reciting lines from To Pimp A Butterfly. Back in 2004, Lamar's first album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, was the subject of an English composition course at Georgia Regents University.