Kendrick Lamar once said, “One for the money, two for the show, three for no limit and the rest for def row.” This quotation is one that sheds light on the theme of popular culture today. A lot of young people seem to be all the about the “yolo” lifestyle and don’t really think about the repercussions. That is why this quotation describes a lot of hip hop artists in the industry. They show in a majority of their videos drugs and alcohol and mention these substances in their lyrics. Alcohol has been a substance that has been constantly condoned by hip hop artists over the years. This directly ties into the song and music video I will be analyzing “Swimming Pools (Drank)” by Kendrick Lamar.
http://www.searchquotes.com/search/Kendrick_Lamar/
from : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLCqSMDEQsA
The song was written by Lamar and Tyler Williams. The song was produced by T-Minus and was mixed by Dr. Dre and TDE’s Ali. The beat is slow and kind of hypnotic, which has a purpose directly related to the lyrics that I will explain later. The song was released to the public on July 31, 2012 and was off of his album Good kid, m A.A.d city by Top Dawg, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope Records. The music video was directed by Jerome D. and premiered August 3 2012 on 106 & Park. Kendrick Lamar is from Compton, California just southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city is one of low-income and the population, 96,455, is made up of predominantly younger people with the average age being 25. Compton began to appear in the media during the 1980’s due to hip hop groups and rappers coming out of this community. The city of southern Los Angeles, including Compton, is known for the gangs and gang violence within the community which has been reinforced by the media. These factors have a huge impact on Kendrick Lamar’s upbringing and where his music ideas stem from. In a city where there is heavy violence, drugs, as well as very low-income, one must turn to a coping mechanism in order to get through their situation. Kendrick, along with many others, turned to hip hop. When a child is put into the environment of drugs, gangs, and violence, they become at risk to fall into that type of life. Kendrick was one that chose another path and took what he saw growing up and channeled it into inspiration for his music.
http://hypetrak.com/2012/07/kendrick-lamar-swimming-pools-drank/
http://www.comptoncity.org/index.php/About-Compton/history-of-the-city.htm
Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools (Drank)” does not fall into the typical, violent, hyper sexualized genre of hip hop. In fact, his video only contains one woman whose face that you can actually see and she is only seen for spurts of time throughout the video. The woman who is consistently in the video is wearing a black, long sleeved leotard. She is dancing with herself while bottles are falling and breaking around her. The music, as I mentioned before, has a slow, hypnotic beat to it in order to give you the illusion of being drunk. Kendrick does not feed into “giving the people what they have been conditioned to want” as explained in Salaam’s article. Instead, he made a song, that on the surface, sounds like it is all about getting drunk and partying it up. However, the song requires the audience to pay attention in order to truly understand that he is not promoting alcoholism, instead he is warning people about it by sharing his story and experience with it.
http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-17534805/the-aesthetics-of-rap
The rhyme pattern within “Swimming Pools (Drank)” is end rhymes. These end rhymes are not at the end of each line consistently but they fall every other line or one line after the other most of the time. For instance one part of his verse is:
Now I done grew up
Round some people living their life in bottles
Granddaddy had the golden flask
Back stroke every day in Chicago
Some people like the way it feels
Some people wanna kill their sorrows
Some people wanna fit in with the popular
That was my problem
I was in the dark room
Loud tunes, looking to make a vow soon
That I’ma get fucked up, fillin’ up my cup
I see the crowd mood
Changing by the minute and the record on repeat
Took a sip, then another sip, then somebody said to me
As you can see, the end rhyme is very apparent and used to enhance the lyrics by contributing to the poetic element of the song. The chorus of this song is an allusion to the population of people who live to get drunk all of the time and have that “yolo” mentality.
Nigga why you babysittin’ only 2 or 3 shots?
I’ma show you how to turn it up a notch
First you get a swimming pool full of liquor, then you dive in it
Pool full of liquor, then you dive in it
I wave a few bottles, then I watch em all flock
All the girls wanna play Baywatch
I got a swimming pool full of liquor and they dive in it
Pool full of liquor I’ma dive in it
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kendricklamar/swimmingpoolsdrank.html
The chorus is a metaphor for peer pressure and the person at a party that is trying to get you drunk with them. “All the girls wanna play Baywatch” is a metaphor for getting all of the girls drunk so they will want to get naked or at least take off their clothes. This is also a reference to popular culture because “Baywatch” was a show that featured attractive lifeguards that were hyper sexualized. The swimming pool of liquor is really an exaggeration that is a reflection of the element of alcohol and the “need” to have it at parties. The media, through movies, television, and music, have influenced society to think that drinking is fun and a party is not the same and not fun without alcohol. Rather than drinking socially and casually, a lot of individuals think that there has to be an abundant supply of liquor at the party and in their bodies to have a good time. The song itself is meant to represent “a full generation of misled kids” as quoted by Lamar in his interview with Power98 FM.
from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuYrRebvFHc
The visual message within the music video is represented in many ways and is reinforced by the lyrics of the song. The main message is to bring awareness to alcohol and it’s effects. The beginning of the video sets up the party scene by having a women dancing seductively with herself and bottles breaking around her. This is to represent what people want and expect when they drink. The video flashes to a party scene and then goes to Kendrick Lamar falling, helplessly. This is part of the video that represents the effects of liquor to the body. One second you could be having a great time and partying and then next you could be passed out, helpless, with no control over your body. Another part of the video is when you can’t see the face of the woman who has a white sheet representing good right before the part of the song where Kendrick’s conscience starts talking to him. Lamar’s conscience was trying to tell him to cool it on the alcohol and that he has had enough and is about to pass his limits.
The ideas and messages the lyrics are conveying is that you do not need to be wasted to have a great time and it brings awareness to the damaging effects of alcohol. The messages are empowering to anyone who consumes alcohol. First, it empowers those who party and drink excessively because they misinterpret the song. Second, it also empowers those who drink every now and then but still do not exceed their limits. The video only features two different types of women, the good and bad, as well as only African Americans. This shows the gender and race elements of the video. The video was geared toward a particular audience and the video only features one race. The music video lacks in diversity and the women were not hyper sexualized nor the main message of the video. Intersectionality takes part within the video with the two types of women, the video consisting only of African Americans, and Lamar being a man in hip hop and sending a message out of the ordinary from other male rappers.
http://www.djbooth.net/index/tracks/review/kendrick-lamar-swimming-pools/showall
I personally like the beat of the song as well as the video because the images complement what the lyrics are saying. The song makes you feel drunk in order to see what Lamar is going through and puts you in that state of mind. One element that I didn’t like was how fast the video would cut from image to image at one point. I couldn’t really tell what exactly was going on because the images started randomly popping up. I have heard this song played in various settings, and I thought it was really dumb at first because all I could remember from the song was drank, drank, drank. Now that I have actually listened to the lyrics and seen the video, I really started enjoying the song and wanting to hear more from this album. Watching the video, as well as reading over the lyrics, helped me to understand the message and overall meaning of the song. The message is really inspiring and unique. It made me feel more confident in society and the industry because this song is played on the radio.This song doesn’t fit the norm of condoning alcohol, sex and drugs within hip hop so it is a breath of fresh air to hear on the radio.
Kendrick Lamar’s history of growing up has been an inspiration for his music. His song “Swimming Pools (Drank)” has numerous elements within the lyrics, beat, and music video that enhance the song and message. The beat has the sound to give the feeling of being drunk, while the video compliments the lyrics. On the surface, the song sounds like a typical get drunk and party hard mix, but when listening closely one will hear Kendrick cautioning the audience. After analyzing Kendrick Lamar’s song and video it is apparent that this artwork is one of poetic justice to fight alcoholism through it ‘s content, imagery, as well as sound that was produced.
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