Prayer – Kendrick Lamar

Inspired by a conversation

In the era of the internet, it seems that seemingly no one who is “on top” can sustain it for more than a few years, most of the time no more than a few months. This can be for a multitude of reasons; shifts in cultural tastes and what seems to me like a generational decrease in the length of attention span are, in my eyes, the main reasons for this. With the influx of visual short-form clips taking over the way everything is consumed, information and opinions can be shared almost instantaneously, and it can take as little as just a few hours for a figure’s reputation to be tarnished. Things that were done in the dark tend to come to light much easier, and it seems like more and more skeletons are being brought out of closets.

The most prominent and recent example of this, in music, would probably be all the P. Diddy stuff that is coming out, but earlier in the year, Kendrick Lamar went on the warpath against Drake, saying what a lot of people were thinking but maybe too scared to say out loud due to Drake’s status and influence. I’ve mentioned before I like a lot of Drake’s music, but I think that Kendrick forever changed the way most people will look at him. It was one of the most entertaining and fun times to be a fan of rap and music as a whole, but there are people out there who are way more versed in that realm and better qualified to explain that entire situation. Kendrick is one of my favorite artists across all genres, so I am bit biased toward him

“Tarnished” As of now, that’s all that has happened to Drake’s reputation. He’s still got fans, he’s still got his quarter of a billion-dollar net worth, life goes on. His pride, I’m sure, is hurt, but he’s still one of the biggest artists in the world. Until more is revealed (the jury still might be out), Drizzy Drake comes out, for the most part, unscathed.

Others within the entertainment industry, R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein, for example, have had any semblance of a career destroyed and are deservedly rotting in jail for the rest of their existence.

Anyway, I say all of that to bring up the idea of separating the art from the artist. Can we still acknowledge that R. Kelly is a hell of a singer? Even typing that feels a bit weird, but the man has talent. Can you still watch a Tarantino film even though Harvey Weinstein financed and produced all of them up until his arrest?

Kendrick tackles this concept in his unreleased song “Prayer.”

There’s a pretty strong theory (maybe confirmed) that this was an early version or form of his 2022 single, “The Heart Part 5,” and I think the two songs certainly explore similar themes. “The Heart Part 5” also has an outstanding music video directed by Dave Free that I’ll link below. The studio behind the effects is Deep Voodoo, founded by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who are currently working on a movie with Kendrick. In “Prayer,” Kendrick presents his case as the personification of “ABC” by The Jackson 5 as well as the personification of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Kendrick gives his own perspective and thoughts in the third verse. I’ll leave it up to y’all to form your thoughts and opinions on both songs; I personally love seeing how a song that starts one way can evolve and change over time and seeing the expansion and evolution of Kendrick’s thoughts and perspective is really cool.

Just to point it out, “Prayer” was produced by my favorite beatmaker, The Alchemist.

Link to Prayer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAU_5O3t-Ws

Link to The Heart Part 5 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAPUkgeiFVY