If we read To Pimp a Butterfly as a manifesto, this searing second single is its thesis. Named for Wallace Thurman’s 1929 novel exploring racial discrimination within the black community, it’s a raging invective against the violence that keeps African-Americans down in modern society—not only the white hatred that drives structural racism, but also the gang warfare perpetuated by black people against one another. Kendrick provocatively calls it hypocrisy, a line that generated some controversy over whether he was practicing the 2015 version of respectability politics. He later explained that he can't change the world until "I change myself first."
Best bit: “I’m African-American, I'm African/I’m black as the heart of a ****in' Aryan”