Truth2Power: Kendrick Lamar - "And man a say they put me inna chains cah we Black Imagine now, big gold chains full of rocks How you no see the whip, left scars ’pon me back But now we have a big whip parked ’pon the block"

"And man a say they put me inna chains cah we Black Imagine now, big gold chains full of rocks How you no see the whip, left scars ’pon me back But now we have a big whip parked ’pon the block"

• Kendrick Lamar, The Blacker the Berry (Released: February 9, 2015)

Genius Annotation:

These lines play with images of slavery in the past and African American life in the present. Black people have gone from being whipped to owning whips—or expensive and flashy cars; from being locked in chains, to wearing gold and diamond chains. Whips and chains were tools of oppression and control during slavery. Now, they represent luxury, but perhaps still tools of a different kind of oppression.

Kanye West’s June 2013 single, “New Slaves,” contains similar subject matter.

“Cah” is Jamaican creole for “because”.

This post was generated by the Truth2Power bot, a project for MIT's CMS.614 created to archive and discuss hip-hop lyrics that speak truth to power.