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Trayvon Martin, Topdog/Underdog, and the Tragedy Trap

At the 2016 Grammy Awards, to the bluesy whine of the saxophone, Kendrick Lamar shuffled onstage, handcuffed, feet shackled to the dancers behind him. The saxophone hushed as he listed to the side, wrapping his chains around the microphone, their clinking loud in the uneasy silence before the percussive crash of the first lyric of “Blacker the Berry” (2015): “I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015.” Lamar’s visual invocation of the history of black bondage and mass incarceration juxtaposed with his proclamation of personal hypocrisy evoked the public debate over the song’s politics: to the ire of many listeners and fellow rappers, the song’s declaration of black self-love in the face of lethal racism is undercut by its critique of black-on-black violence. “So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? / When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? / Hypocrite!” the song ends. In his Grammy performance, however, Lamar eliminated these controversial lyrics, including instead a variation of “Alright” (2015), the song that has become the unofficial anthem of Black Lives Matter protestors around the country. “On February 26th I lost my life too,” he rapped toward the close, lit in the dark by a single spotlight, “That was me yelling for help while he drowned in his blood / Why didn’t he defend himself? / Why didn’t he throw a punch?” Lamar’s oscillating lyrical revisions of possible relations to Martin’s death—from self-condemnation to total identification