Section 8 and ‘Section.80’: Policy Feedback in the Lyrics of Kendrick Lamar

• In Event: Race across Genre: Fiction, Lyrics, and Comics

Abstract

A rich academic literature in public policy studies seeks to understand how policy designs create ‘feedback’ in mass politics (i.e. Schattschneider 1935, Skocpol 1992). In addition to traditional concerns of policy externalities, one crucial feedback mechanism how policy affects the way citizens view themselves and their efficacy in political and social structures (Mettler and Soss 2004). Using the lens and insights of this perspective, this paper critically analyzes the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar in his “Section.80” (2011) and most recent “To Pimp a Butterfly” (2015). How are the policy designs that impacted Lamar’s generation reflected in the stance and aesthetics of “Section.80”? How might the politics and policies of the Obama and Trayvon Martin era –reflected in “To Pimp a Butterfly” - inform and structure the current generation’s sense of political reality and efficacy? As the Nobel committee recently acknowledged, lyrics are an important medium in modern literature. Lamar’s lyrics shed light on an important tradition within policy studies by articulating a both personal and generational perspective on the consequences of policy designs on mass and group political behavior and efficacy.

Author

• Thomas Ringenberg, Rockhurst University