The Micropolitics of Kendrick Lamar

Bachelorarbeit aus dem Jahr 2021 im Fachbereich Didaktik für das Fach Englisch - Landeskunde, Note: 1,7, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The title of the paper already indicates what it is about. The micropolitics of Kendrick Lamar are to be analysed. But what exactly does that mean? This paper will look at what micropolitics means to Kendrick Lamar. Does he define his political opinion through his ethnicity? In this paper, political hip hop and rap will be examined in particular. One of the most important rappers of the 21st century will be used for this purpose: Kendrick Lamar. This paper will deal with how Kendrick Lamar reveals his political opinion in his works. What qualifies him for this thesis is, that Kendrick Lamar raps a lot about racism, discrimination and life as a black person in his songs. But not only these topics are dealt with in his songs. The reference to religion is not neglected either. What runs like a thread through all his songs and albums is the marginalisation of black people. Kendrick Lamar sees himself as the voice of the black oppressed society. He gives them his voice and tries to draw attention to various issues. In the following, micropolitics will be first defined and it will be worked out what it means for the culture and what role popular culture plays here. The most important part of this work is to understand how micropolitics can be used to better understand hip hop. This will be elaborated mainly in the second chapter. Furthermore, this thesis will briefly compare micropolitics and politics and work out what part hip hop can play here. At this point, it will be made clear why Kendrick Lamar resorts to politics in his songs and what politics actually means in this case. Once these basics have been clarified, Kendrick Lamar will be briefly introduced in order to better understand the background of his music. Afterwards, his political attitude will be elaborated. This will be done based on his four published studio albums. Furthermore, four different songs, each song from a different album to see his development, will be analysed in detail. A music video will also be subjected to this analysis.