The Rivera quote, to me, evokes a triplet in its first three syllables. Around 1:50 (2:54 in the Youtube version, which has acted scenes interspersed), however, triplets start showing up, first in a background noise under the word “loyalty” (first red-highlighted spot in the graphic below). The first two minutes of the song are clearly in 4/4. This change occurs in many factors, but perhaps most important is something that music theorists call a “ metric modulation.” In music-theory world, this device is most strongly associated with composer Elliott Carter, but it’s present in lots of music that uses rhythm as a primary expressive tool.

The change here seems to define the song to many critics, who’ve written things like “ The second verse of ‘DNA’ feels like a cathartic explosion,” “ …post beat-switch-the grotesqueness of which is impossible to overstate…,” and “ …as the beat twists into menacing shapes around him.”

And it also makes sense why, when Geraldo Rivera’s words show up sampled in DNA, Lamar’s attitude–and the whole attitude of the music–changes to one of complexity, anger, and brilliance. It also makes sense why Kendrick Lamar’s meditations on his identity as a person, as a person who grew up in Compton, as a person who is a rap artist, and as a person of color, like the track DNA on the album Damn, are so compelling–because that identity is often stereotyped and summarily dismissed in our culture. So it makes sense that Lamar would be insulted by that remark. It’s not hard to find more examples.Įven Kendrick Lamar’s objections to police brutality and glorification of resistance (similar to but less strident than NWA’s) is mirrored in Woody Guthrie’s song Pretty Boy Floyd. The Beatles sang a “humorous” song about a man who murders anyone who gets in his way. One of Katy Perry’s biggest hits is about premarital sex (despite the interpretation offered on Wikipedia). Frank Loesser wrote a popular Christmas song that many argue is about date rape. Let us briefly consider the perfect role models that white-identified artists are not. In 2015, Geraldo Rivera responded to a Kendrick Lamar performance by saying, “This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years.”

Kendrick lamar voice change