Kendrick Lamar, "Black Boy Fly"

Rolling Stone calls up and coming rap artist Kendrick Lamar "a storyteller, not a braggart or punch-line rapper, setting spiritual yearnings and moral dilemmas against a backdrop of gang violence and police brutality." Kendrick was born and raising in Compton, CA. The turbulence of his childhood feature prominently in his lyrics. "Black Boy Fly" is one particularly autobiographical song on his first major album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, which dropped October 22, 2012.

Rap Genius has a great breakdown of the meanings and references embedded in each lyric of "Black Boy Fly."

The song describes Lamar's experiences growing up in the black lower class where "every neighborhood is an obstacle" and being jealous of two of his peers who were making it out of Compton whereas he felt trapped. His experiences are similar to the experiences the Rivers family have in There Are No Children Here; his neighborhood seems submerged in "crime waves," "guns bursting", a pervasive understanding or belief that "only one in a million will ever see better days." Lamar doubts if he'll ever make it. His frustration increases when he sees classmate Arron Afflalo graduate with honors and leave Compton with a bright basketball future ahead.

Lamar's decreasing hopes of leaving Compton are reflective of Bordieu's culture of poverty theory. In Bordieu's theory, the disadvantaged adjust their aspirations to what they expect their life chances to be. Agents are strategic actors who are simply responding to the structural disadvantages thy face each day. Lamar raps that "Compton made you believe success wasn't real" and that "I never believed the type of performance that I could do." Both exemplify the act of adjusting one's aspirations to one's expectations, which is a response to the perceived lack of opportunity coming from one's socioeconomic position and results in self-defeating behavior.

Many of the songs on his album talk about typical experiences of a person growing up in a low income neighborhood and the issues they face growing up.