What's the Yams? Kendrick Lamar's Literary References
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
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00:00 Intro
00:42 Title Card
00:50 To Pimp a Butterfly
01:03 Alright & The Color Purple
01:55 The Blacker The Berry & Wallace Thurman
02:56 King Kunta & Roots
04:07 The Yams
05:47 Power
06:35 Conclusion
Simple, it's the power that be
Matt Denton You can smell it when I'm walking down the street.
Oh yes you can, oh yes you can
I could've did rapping, but a rapper with a ghostwriter, what the fuck happened
Atomic Void "I can dig rappin"
Joe Alvarado ?
Kunta wasnt a slave name, it was actually a free mans name. They tried to make him a slave , and change it to toby. Kunta was the name from his mother tongue. Kdot isnt saying he is a rich slave, he is saying that he is a free man, while others are trying to make him a subject, and cut him short.
Underrated
It is a damn dirty shame the narr aint have the cultural inclination to have had known that.
It's not his fault, iait blamin him.
I aint blamin nobody. Its just when where and how you were raised... and by who.
@@odanemcdonald9874 king kunta means a king and a slave at the same time as the narrator referenced, if Kendrick mehnat what you said then this and many other lyrics wouldn't make any sense, it works cause it's an oxymoron, king slave, king kunta, that's my understanding of it
@@gansach bru. King kunta does not mean king slave. You dont know the significance of the name kunta. Go watch roots before you comment on this because you have it wrong... If you knew what it meant, you would understand the lyrics better..
@@gansach
I take it you've never watched roots.
And this album got beaten by Taylor Swift smh
IT DID????????
Well the majority of the nation is 60% white
WUJIBIFAN wtf
@@slimshady9200 no , it's not skin color , it's 60% of the nation that's sleep
@@mo1st_codered114 really so white people weren't protesting against rap music
Lol "yams" is a code word for cocaine in the drug world. "The yams is the power that be." Is a reference to the power one can accumulate in the hood through drug dealing, also "the yams brought it out of Richard Pryor and filled Bill Clinton with desires" is in reference to their drug use. All that being said it doesn't take away from the other literary references explained in the video it just shows how good Kendrick actually is.
True but what this guy said is credible to the bill clinton reference was vaguely connected to drug addiction
I think yams = cocaine (drugs,money,power) makes more sense. Kendrick albums are crazy you can listen to it 30x and find something you missed each time.
Hip hop is poetry with many different interpretations
malik collins thank you so I can leave this lame ass vid
malik collins Bill was never reported to do any drugs? Not even the sleaziest conspiracy website even claimed that.
books mentioned:
Roots by Alex Haley
The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Things Falll Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Blacker the Berry Wallace Thurman
Invisible Man by Ralph Elison
Thank you! I’m in a bookshop right now and didn’t want to play the video
Thanks a lot !
Thank you, I appreciate this for future book references…
This is high level content right here
Angus Mok one of the best on yt
Angus Mok A poem just for you 👉🏽 ua-cam.com/video/OJJZYsY9v5s/v-deo.html
Hmm...he missed a lot A Lot of context.
Videos like this just enforce the fact that Kendrick is indeed the GOAT.
@Arthur Wall nah yo the 🐐
Yeah he took the baton from Pac.
one of the goats for sure
the very best? We'll see that when he releases a few more records
Act like Nas doesn’t exist
He’s up there, but he hasn’t taken #1 yet
I'm black and now have a lot of reading to do lol. Your channel will surely blow up; keep up the good content.
And if you were white? Would this not compel you to read all of the books talked about?
Robert Caban dude who the fuck cares what color you are? let him discover his own culture's literature without being harassed.
My point exactly. There's no reason to say that he's black. Thanks for agreeing with me.
Stop letting the white man and his puppets tell you what you should and shouldn't be doing
someguy ihate to point out that he wasn't aware of some of his own culture, Christ Almighty
“they say the black the berry
the sweeter the juice,
i say the darker the flesh
then the deeper the roots.”
- tupac
Important to note that you call Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart as an "African American Novel" but it isnt American at all. Just straight African
God bless you
You're enlightened my fellow human
Jessica Haug I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to refer to all people who look black as African Americans but that’s just a huge generalization.
Jessica Haug the man be full on Nigerian
@@VintageNarwhal why are balck people who were born in the US, and whose parents were born in the US, refered to as "African American"? I'm not american, so I never got that
Incredible- I knew Kendrick's albums were meticulous but this was still an underestimation. Subbed!
such an underrated channel. This video and the video about bonzo, absolutely great content
jaibir matthers he just needs to be more active on the channel
The Bonzo video made me sub
HippyDosa420 Just came from the Bonzo vid. Polyphonic is one my favorite music-related channel on UA-cam
Yup.That vid on J.B. was mean!
I feel like Kendrick Lamar will win the Nobel Prize for Poetry in the future, just like Bob Dylan and his lyrics
He won Pulitzer so you never know
@@christopherg.8591same level basically
Excellent content - we need more video essays about music. Subbed.
Peter Gabriel a spectacular poem 👉🏽 ua-cam.com/video/OJJZYsY9v5s/v-deo.html
I am more and more amazed by Kedrick's genius every day
n
I dont think anywhere else the song would be dissected so nicely.
It's pretty funny that I was studying African history, like the African empires and Zulu Nation, colonization, and apartheid and read All Things Fall Apart the semester of the release of the album in my freshmen year of high school. It just makes me appreciate one of the greatest albums of all time even more
Everyone should read Things Fall Apart and Ellis' Invisible Man. Also the others I feel are widely read by everyone! Color Purple & Toni Morrison's work is so important in America !!
It's amazing how they managed to cover almost every possible connotation for yams including money, sex and power, even highlighting the Pryor and Clinton mentions, without getting the drug reference.
It would be great if you added in a list of all the literature references you make in your videos in the description. Great content btw!
Suha Fatima i was just about to comment that
1. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
2. The Blacker the Berry
3. Roots: the Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
4. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
5. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
I agree he should add a list of the references, I just thought I could help fill the void in this video :^)
The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.
DAMN. doesn't even come close to To Pimp a Butterfly imo
True but DAMN is still good though
All my white friends are like OMG I LOVR DAMN but they never heard section.80, Good kid, TPAB, or Overly Dedicated **SIGH** all these fake fans.
DAMN. Is his best album I think y'all just don't understand it
@@jayrusso1589 im pretty sure you don't understand TPAB... far more deep
If you fully understand DAMN. you'll see the difference isn't that big
2:05 "I can fix that"
Ashanti Nyongo bruh lmfaooooooooo
Ashanti Nyongo bruh clam down 😹😹
Yeeeee
u won homie
you got me good with that. holes is my jam. or should i say yam.
The clips showing the person cutting 'yams' on the cutting board, those aren't actually yams. Those are sweet potatoes, you can tell because of the orange hue when it's been cut, yams have a white/pale hue and they taste bitter naturally. Idk why I see so many call sweet potatoes yams. The only yams I saw in this video was the clip in the end where the man literally dug it out from under the ground.
justme18 and
LOL
Ikr too many people mix them up
justme18 does i really matter tho?
People where I'm from often refer to sweet potatoes when they say "yams". I grew up eating "yams" from a can, "yam" casserole. I don't like to make generalizations but I believe it's a southern United States thing.
"Things Fall Apart" is also the name of a Roots album
Good shit
That's where I knew that from
Yes! Finally someone makes a video about the yam reference. Thanks to my high school teachers, I read both "Things Fall Apart" and "Invisible Man." Kendrick deserves even more respect for his work on this album alone.
like nobody already knew Kendrick is a genius.
That's why I fuck with this album so much. You could do a video on every song of the album. Good shit
Kendrick is the lyrical goat
Man, LOVING these videos. Hoping to see more from this channel!
Thanks! There's a lot more coming, a new video every 2 for the time being
This channel is so high quality you should have at least a 100,000ish subs
What an awesome channel you got! Keep the good work.
Salutes from Mexico!:)
Well done! Extremely informative and easy to understand. Just found your channel and I'm really enjoying the content.
bruh isn't "yams" slang for "grams of cocaine" .... Yams = grams?
Yes, it also means that. Most of his songs have fun double meanings in the lyrics like this
Close. Its slang for kilos. Much bigger measurement and weight haha
👏🏽 xxx
double meaning, references to both literary works and drugs
I've never subscribed to a channel so quickly after discovering it. You're gonna be huge. Also love how you do all kinds of music from Led Zeppelin to Arcade Fire, to Kendrick. Keep it up man
so stoked i found this channel
chayse Schutter Same man
Man, I'm loving your channel. These are great! Please keep them coming.
Just stumbled across this video and I have to say it's VERY well done. Great production quality dude. Good job.
Only Kendrick can make a lyric that takes 7 minutes to explain
Eminem , anderson paak
@@SilsufDreamy333
Em has a lot too.
Since Kendrick sites Em as an inspiration, it is no surprise that both are such elite/complex lyricists.
@@apurvashanker Kendrick is a better lyricist than enimen
@@James-vy5jg
Here we go..
@@apurvashanker i aint starting no argument, theres no comp here. kendrick is just better.
The more and more i learn of this album and dig, i become even more stunned by him & his work
Thank you for going so in depth!! A lot of channels will just throw in opinions with no citations. Power to you!
You're killin it with these vids. Insightful thought provoking content and top notch production quality. This is what UA-cam should be.
This channel is so going to blow up. The fuse has been lit.
The more I look into Kendrick, the more impressed I am. TPAB is one of the best albums of this century, though its taken me years to even vaguely understand it.
Thank you for this amazing content!!! Please make more videos like this, your channel help me understand more about music and the people behind it, keep up the amazing work :))
Dude this is insane. So much effort and info in one vid... Thanks man this is awesome!! :)
OMG THINGS FALL APART IS THE BOOK WE'RE STUDYING THIS SCHOOL YEAR
Lol Lol ITS SO GOOD, YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO THE ROOTS' ALBUM NAMED AFTER IT
Same lmao
Lol Lol I guess you're in 10th grade or something
A year though?
Blvckkeef I'm in 8th grade.
I'm seeing Kendrick tomorrow, I'm so hyped #DAMNTour
Love the content this is one of my favorite albums of my life hands down so to get even more up close and personal with it this way I love it 😁😁😁 keep up the great content !!!
My favorite kendrick album! People need more videos like these to show them why it is a masterpiece.
BRAND-ish we need way less of these videos
FUCKING FINALLY! Glad to see someone finally agreeing the reference is from Things Fall Apart
The yams is that power that 🅱️
U can smell it when u walking down the street
*La Chancleta*
Oh yes you can
Holly Cline
Oh yes yuh cannnnnn
This is a treasure of a channel. Excited to see what else you put out. SUBBED.
This is a really good, educative and informative video. Keep up with this Polyphonic.
Great Channel with Great content!
Liam Strömberg David Gilmour, I see you
Just Some Asian Dude haha heeey
Great content but just one thing : I'm pretty sure the 'Blacker the Berry' is NOT about skin tone discrimination or colorism, but about systemic racism against African Americans (and the hypocrisy of gang members protesting police brutality while killing each others). 'Complexion' tho, as the title suggests is about skin tone discrimination.
Armz maybe, tbh I haven't listened to it in a while but to me that's the general idea i have in mind when thinking of that song. Need to listen to it again.
hey so I've listened to it again and it really isn't about skin tone discrimination (to me at least) it is really is about institutionalised racism in the first two verses ("Church me til I'm dead, fuck me with your fake prophesising that I'm a be just another slave in my head, institutionalised manipulations and lies" etc). You could argue that the lines "I'm black as the name Darius, I'm black as the heart of a fucking Aryan" would be about skin tone (even though I think it's about being proud to belong to black culture and giving the finger to those that criticise it but whichever way you wanna read this) there's nothing about discrimination and skin tone per se in these lines. But feel free to point out lines that you think point to that!
Ah I see where you coming from. I guess for me the last verse stuck out since I first heard it, not only because that's where we get the answer as to why Kendrick was the "biggest hypocrite of 2015" but I just didn't expect him to turn the responsibility inwards so to speak and it's just the surprise of his honesty stayed with me. I'm from a minority myself so I'm obviously not gonna deny that racism is systemic and it makes things VERY difficult (especially in America), however, I do think we have a fair share of responsibility in bettering our lives (except when it comes to police brutality which is... inescapable it seems). With all that being said, that was a hasty comment, and I'm gonna edit it to be clear about what I meant. Cheers!
Word. The theme of colourism is definitely more evident in Complexion than in Blacker The Berry
I know right? It's almost like he didn't listen to the track and just placed it there for its title and analogy to that book...
Things Fall Apart I got, but all the others I didn't know about. You're fantastic! Subscribed.
Awesome intro! Love it! Waiting for more.
Chinua Achebe was Nigerian not "African American".
Technically, he was Igbo, not "Nigerian".
+smartsport What? lol please shut up
There're so many different cultures and languages and tribes in Nigeria that saying someone is "Nigerian" is basically as unspecific as saying someone is "African American". Neither indicate actual cultural heritage but just indicate very general geographic location.
no its not. i from nigeria and i'm like "what? lol please shut up"
Chinua Achebe is Nigerian 🇳🇬 for God sake.... Any 9ja 4 here?
had low expectations for this when i heard a white dude voice talkin about king kunta. pleasantly surprised at your celebration of black art. this was cool
Amazing video! How did I just find it now? What a gem 💎
Dude!!!! I've always loved that yams line and I could never figure out what exactly he meant. Thanks man. Also had no idea about those other lit(erary) references.
Forever 1of my fav KDot lines; I swore I wouldn’t tell... BUT MOST OF YALL SHARE’N BARS LIKE YOU GOT THE BOTTOM BUNK IN A 2 MAN CELL. 🤯
Damn when u think Kendrick couldn't get any deeper
Great work, well researched and edited. Keep it up!
Your vids are awesome! Super well done. Would really love more classic rock and roll themed!
This is great. But yams are white fleshed. Your video has footage of sweet potatoes. I say this from a place of love for sweet potatoes and my desire for them to get the credit they deserve.
Matthew B Alexander Jr. Because in most communities yams is another word to identify sweet potatoes
"I yam that I yam."-Invisible Man
This channel is gold. You got a new subscriber. And Kendrick is a genius.
what a indepth analysis, i bow my head. Could never understand a single reference in king kunta but urged to do so. THANK YOU
I always thought it was either about asap yams rip or a sack of yams
Do more videos on rap!
Your channel is one of the best in UA-cam. Thanks!
This a sickass channel. Keep up the good work
I was in this Video .... WestSide Compton
The yam is the power that be
This video gave me life fam, great job!
Brilliant work need more of this!!!
Actually Yams when reference to Richard Pryor means "crack cocaine"
Darrell Timbers Right it’s a reference to cocaine smuggling and how it goes all the way up the pipeline to the government
The next pac😤💯
Love this imaginative and brilliant channel. Subbed!!
Great videos! Keep it up man
nice vid even if I don't listen to kendrick lamar
you're missing out if you don't listen to Kendrick
Yup missin out big time
Don't miss the goat man
Bruh all of his music is deep J. Cole doesnt evnenen come close to him.
I was with you until you failed to mention that yams are also a reference to coke aka the drug that took prior out
Wow -- that was amazing. Great work!
Great video ! Love the channel !
Keep doin'it !
Thanks from France ;)
Can't keep my duck in my pants
you right Ma bitch don't love me no more
Stream Spirit she kicked me out im like vro
That bitch dont wanna be friends
tomasv26 and I know when that hotline bling!
You're partly wrong about the Yams. They're a code word for cocaine,
That comedians drug abuse is directly correlated
Scandals involving Bill Clinton using it
he also says "you can smell it..."
He's referring to cocaine
more of this please? Great content!!
Brilliantly done. Keep them coming brilliantly done.
Who knew yams had so many metaphors
No mention of yams as a euphemism for drugs?
Yes! I love digging into these tracks. Check out this analysis of the entire album! ua-cam.com/video/U5ajFZ-mDGo/v-deo.html
So. Much. Depth.
Love the research bruh. Alright by K. Dot may be a classic from the previous decade. You., Not expected to grow up on the "Color Purple" caught the connection. Big blessings to you bruh! Keep sharing your understanding. Dope channel G. Peace!
No mention of How Much A Dollar Cost? Damn
I see what you did there
why do rappers glorify domestic violence by constantly telling Anna Mae to "eat the cake". It's personally unnerving to me every time it comes up, mostly because the tone is so self affirming
I'm sure you've heard it. J Cole and Jay Z have said it. I just wonder why rappers would choose to glorify being shitty to women and trying to forcefully put them in their place, especially in this so-called conscious era
Armz 😑😑😑 gotta watch What's Love Got To Do With It to understand
Jesse Torres because when they say theyre getting cake. it means theyre getting rich. they throw in anna mae as a reference. Possibly meaning that they get rich even with things forcing them down.
Jesse Torres shut up sensitive bitch
I beat her hard, cuz we real bangerz. what'd I tell you, bitch! No more wire hangers!
Very well researched and informative. Thankyou .
Dude, this video is amazing. U got a sub man.
Many here laud the 'high level content' and yes indeed it is. Were it not that this theory was already thoroughly analysed 2 years earlier: www.avclub.com/article/kendrick-lamar-imbues-root-vegetable-literary-mean-228077
If you wanna run a proper channel, you better make sure you reference your sources! It clearly isn't you and only you who put this body of thought together.
Invisible Man and Things Fall Apart are both quite popular books. It's not a stretch to believe that two well-read people would come to the same conclusion after listening to "King Kunta" once.
Did Kendrick really read those many books?
Ian Evadar He's rich for a reason right
Are you really asking if one guy read five books?
Cat Birral Hahahahaha right? That's hilarious the way i read that
Kung-fu Kenny studied the muthafuckin greats
That seems like a lot
You just got a new sub. Thanks for looking deeper into a goat
Editing on point! Just gained a sub!