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Kendrick Lamar Vs. MLK: Honor, Power, and Ambition

In KLs Backseat Freestyle, he makes an allusion to MLKs famous I Have A Dream speech. This got me thinking about what MLK might think of KLs dream and vice versa. Both deal with Honor, Power, and Ambition. 1. How is Kendricks song an example of the Honor, Power, and Ambition theme? Please cite at least one line that proves your point!

2. How is MLKs speech an example of the Honor, Power, and Ambition theme? Please cite at least one line that proves your point!

3. WHY do you think Kendrick chose this quote to start off his song? What is the deeper meaning?

4. (a) How would MLK feel about Kendricks version of the American Dream seeking after Honor, Power, and Ambition?(b) Give me a quote from MLKs speech that supports why you think he would feel that way:

6. Most people dont know that the end part of Kings speech was off the dome. Kendrick is freestyling too, a hip hop technique which actually resembles a literary technique known as stream of consciousness. This is when the words of a poem or novel or song appear to simply follow a persons train of thought wherever it goes, like if you just wrote down everything you were thinking with no attempt to edit or make sense . Example: orange is the color of my true loves courage, black is the color of my loyalty and fidelity. pull the arrows out without leaving a scar, can you? bears watch over us as we sail through dragon-filled deserts, pyramids of shimmering green and gold and malachite, crystal balls guard the entry. Using the rest of this space, take 5 minutes and try to write your own freestyle or stream-of-consciousness piece about the theme of Honor, Power, and Ambition. Dont think too hard about how it sounds; just try and write down the flow of your thoughts, wherever that goes:

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Kendrick Lamar Vs. MLK: Honor, Power, and Ambition

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Martin had a dream, Martin had a dream Kendrick have a dream: All my life I want money and power / Respect my mind or die from lead shower /I pray my [] get big as the Eiffel Tower / So I can [] the world for 72 hours / [Verse 1]: I feel amazing, I'm in the matrix / My mind is living on cloud 9 and this 9 is never on vacation / Start up that Maserati and VROOM VROOM! I'm racing / Poppin pills in the lobby and I pray they don't find her / And I pray you [] is hating, shooters go after Judas / Jesus Christ if I live life on my knees, ain't no need to do this / Park it in front of Lueders, next to that Church's Chicken / All you [] is losers, all my [homies] is winners, screaming [HOOK]

[BRIDGE] I got (okay!) I got (okay!) I got wifey, girlfriend and mistress All my life I want money and power / Respect my mind or die from lead showers / [Verse 2]: I've got 25 Lighters on my dresser, yes sir / Put fire to that [], body cast on a stretcher / And her body got that [] that a ruler couldn't measure / And it make me fast but I never get embarrassed / And I recognize you have what I've been wanting since that record /That Adina Howard had pop it fast to impress her / She rollin' I'm holding [] and posing /

This voice here is golden so [] I goes in and [HOOK][BRIDGE][Verse 3] It's go time / I roll in dough with a good grind / And I run at [] with a baton / That's a relay race with a bouquet / They say, "K, you goin' marry mines?"[] / OK, I'm never living life confined It's a failure. Even if I'm blind / I can tell ya who what when where how / To sell ya game right on time [] / I look like OJ, killing everything from - to a Hit-Boy beat / She [] poppin' and I got options like an audible, I be C-O-M-P-T-O-N, I win then ball at your defeat / C-O-M-P-T-O-N, my city mobbin' in the street, yellin' [HOOK]

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Kendrick Lamar Vs. MLK: Honor, Power, and Ambition