{"id":2539,"date":"2024-01-03T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T23:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2026-10-14T23:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T23:08:16","slug":"kendrick-lamar-in-africa-big-steppers-heritage-plug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=2539","title":{"rendered":"Kendrick Lamar in Africa \u2013 Big Stepper’s Heritage Plug"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kendrick Lamar\u2019s hip hop career is a never-ending attempt to go back home. Despite American novelist Thomas Wolfe\u2019s singular warning, \u201cYou can\u2019t go back home to your family, back home to your romantic love, back home to a young man\u2019s dreams of glory and fame\u201d or \u201cback home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time,\u201d the highly regarded rapper wants to remember and return to his grounded place with each new album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Kendrick soon finds, like many a prophet before him, that the direction home is not so much a circle as it is a road with a thousand forks. His moments of duality are neither the rights and wrongs of his cruel self-probing nor the tension between the Black prophetic mantle and the bright lights of Hollywood. The ultimate duality is that home is split in itself. Whether home means Compton on \u201cgood kid, m.A.A.d city\u201d (2012), Africa on \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d (2015), ego on \u201cDAMN!\u201d (2017) or family on \u201cMr. Morale and the Big Steppers\u201d (2022), its contours never settle in time to welcome the native.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Black Power masterpiece \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly,\u201d the question is never decided whether the often repeated phrase, \u201cI came home,\u201d refers to Compton or Africa. Kendrick knows this. That\u2019s why a giant map of Africa labeled \u201cCompton\u201d provided a backdrop for his recent performance in Rwanda. The Compton native was back in the Bright Continent to headline the inaugural Move Afrika concert at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on December 6 and Hey Neighbor Festival at Legends Adventure Farm in Pretoria, South Africa, on December 9, 2023. He was back home for the third time, having previously toured South Africa in 2014 and visited Ghana in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kigali, Rwanda<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Move Afrika revelers at Rwanda\u2019s 10k seater BK Arena (Photo \u2013 BK Arena)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Morale kicked off his Rwanda performance to the full-throated African drums of his 2022 album opener, \u201cUnited in Grief.\u201d The crowd ecstatically sang along to \u201cN95,\u201d performed second in order of the tracklist. Making good on its rejection of digital civilization, the song was greeted with the life-size fabric placing Compton at the center of Africa, complemented with stage lighting, filtered overhead through multi-colored Agaseke baskets by Nyamirambo Women\u2019s Centre and Kitenge fabrics by Dolf Benza and Stufish. The Pan-Africanist backdrop was, of course, a relic from Lamar\u2019s iconic 2016 Grammy performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After crowning his five Grammys with performance of the night credit then, Kendrick told the Recording Academy that he had written \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d under the stimulus of his 2014 tour stop in South Africa. The recollection equally explained his choice of backdrop that night: \u201cI felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn\u2019t taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put together a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they\u2019re still in the ghettos of Compton.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few times between his 70-minute Move Afrika performance on December 6, Kendrick stopped the music to appreciate his spectators, mostly from Rwanda but also neighbors, Kenya and Uganda. \u201cIt\u2019s my first time on stage in front of my people,\u201d<\/strong> he told the 10 000-seater BK Arena, deep-diving into confessions and epiphanies along the set. \u201cEvery individual here, y\u2019all truly inspired me and I\u2019m sure everyone on my team feels the same way,\u201d<\/strong> he said but reserved special thanks for his spirited steppers, ballerinas and child dancers, hired from Rwanda\u2019s Sherrie Silver Foundation for the occasion, his fellow performers, including DJ Toxxyk and Bruce Melody, also from the host country, and Zuchu from Tanzania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where TPAB is concerned, Oklama was understandably high on his own stash. \u201c\u2018To Pimp a Butterfly!\u2019 If I recollect properly, the reason of this album was because of Africa,\u201d<\/strong> he said in between a TPAB section that started with; \u201cKing Kunta,\u201d followed by \u201ci,\u201d \u201cInstitutionalized,\u201d \u201cThe Blacker the Berry,\u201d interrupted by \u201cLove,\u201d dedicated to Rwanda for the occasion, and closed by \u201cAlright.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some 12 Rwandan rappers, including Kivumbi King, Pro Zed, Angel Mutoni, Joe Logan, Bruce the 1st, Kenny Kshot, Maestroboomin and Prime got to pick Kendrick\u2019s brain before the Kigali concert, while some went on to curtain-raise for him after President Paul Kagame\u2019s speech. The young artists treasured nuggets from the \u201cbrother time,\u201d including the Compton emcee\u2019s advice to \u201c\u2026like yourself and be comfortable in positions of fear.\u201d<\/strong> For his part, the \u201cSavior\u201d rapper wants to be \u201cto be fearless in every word that I say, to be child-like\u201d<\/strong> so creative ideas come his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was saying to your local artists when I started doing music, I was just doing music for me, talking about my experiences, where I come from, giving medicine to the people around me that was going through things. That was the whole inspiration behind \u2018good kid, m.A.A.d city\u2019,\u201d<\/strong> Mr. Morale went into \u201cbrother time\u201d again at BK Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany years from that day, I wouldn\u2019t have known I would be in Rwanda, Africa. But not only I am touching people in my community, but I am touching people right here,\u201d<\/strong> he intimated. \u201cI think from the moment I started writing, without me even knowing, subconsciously, my whole purpose was to evolve and learn myself and find myself and continue understanding who I am. And removing the perception of who I\u2019m perceived to be, I\u2019m still learning to this day,\u201d<\/strong> explained Mr. Morale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards the end of the show, Kendrick shared an epiphany in which his life was reflected in a young Rwandan interlocutor. Notably, the 2015 album owes some of its deeper cuts to Oklama\u2019s mythic encounters in South Africa: the young boy who turns out to be his ancestor in \u201cMomma,\u201d the old beggar who turns out to be God in \u201cHow Much a Dollar Cost\u201d and the \u201cghost of Mandela\u201d at Robben Island Prison in \u201cMortal Man.\u201d \u201cNo matter where you\u2019re around the world, if you really mean what you say, it don\u2019t matter where you at; you gon\u2019 respect, you gon\u2019 feel that shit,\u201d<\/strong> Kendrick repeated his exchange with the young man from the meet and greet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Move Afrika, a partnership between Global Citizen, a humanitarian agency, and Lamar\u2019s at-service company, pgLang, will be held annually in Africa to \u201cpromote health and equity, defend our planet, and create jobs and economic opportunity.\u201d 70% of Move Afrika concert tickets were exchanged for humanity-improving services, including healthcare, agriculture and climate action. According to Global Citizen,1,000 trees were planted as part of the inaugural Move Afrika event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Kagame of Rwanda addressed the crowd before Kendrick\u2019s performance. \u201cWhat a good way of ending the year, with music, with energy, with optimism!\u201d<\/strong> Kagame said. \u201cI want to dedicate this moment to the community health workers who keep us healthy,\u201d<\/strong> he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelson Mandela\u2019s grandson and Global Citizen chief vision officer, Kweku Mandela, said Move Afrika aimed to create a \u201crobust touring circuit to the continent,\u201d<\/strong> especially since Africa is usually omitted from the global touring commitments of pop notables. \u201cWe are putting a marker in the sand around live touring events and showcasing the creative economy on the African continent \u2013 you\u2019re talking about the world\u2019s youngest population, over 700 million people with the median age of 19,\u201d<\/strong> Mandela said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pretoria, South Africa<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Kendrick Lamar performs in South Africa on December 9. His first visit to the country inspired \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d (Photo \u2013 Hey Neighbor Festival)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For South Africa, Kendrick took a different visual approach, performing in front of giant fabric resizes of critically acclaimed American artist Henry Taylor\u2019s acrylic-on-canvas paintings. Taylor\u2019s talents, previously tapped for the limited-edition vinyl release of \u201cDAMN!\u201d single \u201cDNA,\u201d have already been a notable feature of the record-grossing Big Steppers Tour. For Hey Neighbor Festival, Kendrick used four Taylor paintings, \u201cResting\u201d (2011), \u201cSweet\u201d (2013), \u201cThe Love of Cousin Tip\u201d (2017) and \u201c\u2018Batman\u2019 Part Alien\u201d (2018) as his backdrops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mostly themed around the Black family, the paintings are also inside-captioned Los Angeles and California, Kendrick\u2019s city and state. Both photos for \u201cMr. Morale and the Big Steppers\u201d album art are a possible nod to \u201cResting.\u201d In the painting, this is captured in a \u201cNo Warning Shots Required\u201d sign in the young couple\u2019s background and a list of items for an imprisoned relative on the table, while Kendrick\u2019s own \u201cresting\u201d on his inside art embodies tension, just as his family photo gives away a gun and a diamond crown of thorns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/CvEnNBNsjP3\/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Taking up the TPAB theme from the Kigali concert, Kendrick told his South African hosts how the country lit his fire when he painted his masterpiece. \u201cIt was 2014, the first time I came to South Africa, right? And that shit inspired a particular album, one of my favorite albums. \u2018To Pimp a Butterfly\u2019! Beautiful! I said when I go back to the city, I got a story; I got some inspiration; I gotta tell both sides of the page, huh? I tried my best to make it all make sense. I think it\u2019s a decent album,\u201d<\/strong> he told a proud crowd in Pretoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having previously performed in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, Kendrick was in Pretoria for his second dance with South Africa. The Heineken-powered and unity-themed Hey Neighbor Festival featured Khalid, The Chainsmokers, Swedish House Mafia, H.E.R. and South African stars including Nasty C, Musa Keys, Zakes Bantwini, Mafikizolo and Tyla of \u201cWater.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You Can\u2019t Go Back Home <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Argentinian movie, \u201cThe Distinguished Citizen,\u201d a homecoming Nobel laureate must put up with local artists and politicians who demand his public endorsement for their narrow interests. He will soon find that, \u201cYou can\u2019t go back home,\u201d as Wolfe warns in his novel of the same title, \u201cto singing just for singing\u2019s sake, back home to aestheticism, to one\u2019s youthful idea of \u2018the artist\u2019 and the all-sufficiency of \u2018art\u2019 and \u2018beauty\u2019 and \u2018love\u2019 \u2026 away from all the strife and conflict of the world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning with Bob Marley in Gabon, homecoming Pan-Africanists will soon find their love of the people and nostalgia for the mother continent complicated with governance problems at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Bob Marley et la Fille du Dictateur (Bob Marley and the Dictator\u2019s Daughter) by Ann-Sophie Jansen chronicles Pan-Africanist firebrand\u2019s trip to Gabon off his affair with dictator Bongo\u2019s daughter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kendrick\u2019s homecoming too, has not been without controversy. A BBC article describing the Kigali concert as a \u201csoft power\u201d move by Rwanda, a country recently ruled an unsafe haven for refugees handed down from Britain because of its poor record on human rights, set off an echo chamber. Widely seen as the West\u2019s favorite dictator for maintaining social and economic stability beyond his country\u2019s fractured past, President Paul Kagame maintains a chokehold on free speech and incarcerates opposition activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rwandan President Paul Kagame\u2019s Move Afrika speech paid homage to community health workers (Photo \u2013 BK Arena)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A disciplinarian and diplomat, Kagame has also been the envy of dictators who seek economic benefits from good relations with the West without ceding the civic space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Zimbabwe, his admirers have been engaged in a public relations campaign whereby international celebrities, including American rapper Rick Ross, American boxer Flyod Mayweather and South African actress Pearl Thusi, have been reportedly paid to make public appearances with a flag-scarf associated with the ruling party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, one does not lightly pass Kendrick\u2019s African jeremiads for romanticized nostalgia. Mr. Morale\u2019s raps can, indeed, be thought of as a \u201ccritical home theory\u201d \u2013 with home representing all that is sacred and innermost, from the ego, to the family, the hood, the culture and the race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A master of duality, Kung Fu Kenny\u2019s steel cuts both sides, so that songs like \u201ci\u201d and \u201cu,\u201d \u201cAlright\u201d and \u201cThe Blacker the Berry\u201d sit side by side. To hear psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud tell it, \u201cI believe that when poets complain that two souls dwell in the human breast, and when popular psychologists talk of the splitting of people\u2019s egos, what they are thinking of is this division\u2026 between the critical agency and the rest of the ego\u2026\u201d Lauded as the voice of a persecuted people, Kendrick has also been accused of victim-blaming, particularly for the racially charged \u201cThe Blacker the Berry,\u201d which calls out community violence. But one aspect of being Kendrick is that neither himself nor his own are simply forgiven for belonging home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kendrick\u2019s \u201cHumble\u201d bragging, \u201cGet the fuck off my stage; I am the Sandman,\u201d evokes the classic American character of the Apollo Theater but the rapper could be a closer relation of Freud\u2019s Sandman. The psychoanalyst used the German novel, \u201cSandman,\u201d by E.A Hoffman to develop his theory of the uncanny, defined as a frightening encounter with an oddly familiar feel. Freud stresses the German word for uncanny, \u201cunheimlich,\u201d to explain the uncanny as the unsettling vibe unconcealed out of homely situations. Kendrick is no stranger to the uncanny, if only because of his last album\u2019s prelude video, \u201cThe Heart Part 5,\u201d whose character-morphing deepfakes stress the signature, \u201cI AM ALL OF US.\u201d Aside from the 2022 video, the rapper makes extensive use of doubles and epiphanies not just to make peace with his demons but also to sustain a critique of his own environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freud\u2019s \u201cunheimlich\u201d can be extended to the Rwanda concert where Sherone Silver Foundation dancers\u2019 automated vibe and uniformed force-like outfit, against Lamar\u2019s gold-embellished black suit, gave off the optics of Africa\u2019s officialdom, not least Rwanda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cUnited in Grief,\u201d Kendrick runs off a checklist of his acquisitions, describing it as his way of \u201cgrieving different,\u201d a coping mechanism for generational trauma. African heads of states, typically decolonial orators, also \u201cgrieve different\u201d with a keen taste for colonial capitals, commodities and customs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening subtitles of TPAB video, \u201cFor Sale,\u201d \u201cThey say if you are afraid go to church; but remember he knows the Bible too,\u201d set the stage for \u201cThe Heart Part 5.\u201d \u201cHe,\u201d of course stands for Lucy (Lucifer) interchanged with the industry and Uncle Sam throughout \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly.\u201d In other words, the system pressing African-American people down also wills itself to speak the language of their environment \u2013 a continued cycle of cultural expropriation. This is Kendrick\u2019s basis for refusing fixed narratives, political correctness, cancel culture and finally self-immolating his Black prophetic statue on \u201cMr. Morale and the Big Steppers.\u201d On \u201cThe Heart Part 5,\u201d Kendrick wants to \u201cgo to church\u201d and whom does he expect there but the devil with his finger on a Bible quote? He puts the culture on blast because, though we have come to think of it as sacred and innermost, it has also been appropriated, corrupted and shot through with generational curses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Butterfly on the Radar?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting to parse the impact of Lamar\u2019s latest Africa tour in terms of potential music. K.Dot had rapped about \u201cracing with Marcus Garvey on the freeway to Africa\u201d on \u201cSection.80\u201d\u2019s \u201cHiiiPower\u201d but when manager Dave Free came to organizing his 2014 shows in South Africa, nobody in Lamar\u2019s record label TDE had background information on the continent, aside stereotypes soaked up from public education and the media. Looking back on the experience in a 2017 interview with comedian Dave Chappelle, Lamar described his tour stops in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg as his \u201cI\u2019ve arrived\u201d shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a place that we, in urban communities, never dream of,\u201d<\/strong> Lamar said. \u201cWe never dream of Africa. Like, \u2018Damn, this is the motherland.\u2019 You feel it as soon as you touch down. That moment changed my whole perspective on how to convey my art.\u201d<\/strong> Returning to L.A, Lamar would cancel three albums worth of music and build a new album around the Bright Continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free recalled Kendrick\u2019s call to him from South Africa, in a 2021 interview with the Big Hit Show podcast. \u201cBro, I just went through a village,\u201d<\/strong> Lamar told Free. \u201cI never felt that much love in one place. Just love, like the energy of that.\u201d<\/strong> At Robben Island Prison, Lamar sat in Nelson Mandela\u2019s cell, immersing himself in the spirit of \u201cMortal Man.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember going inside that cell and you know the way I felt and how humble I was,\u201d<\/strong> Kendrick said on the same podcast in 2021. \u201cYou know that this man that was fighting for equality served 27 years, 18 months in that little cell but still kept his mental capacity and still kept his integrity and his enthusiasm to motivate not only himself but the people around him. It inspired me a hundred percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I kind of took that experience and looked within myself for my own experiences. Okay, I come from a background of a neighborhood that wasn\u2019t so much perceived to be great but I can\u2019t let these four corners define who I am or define who my homeboys are. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, so I took that experience, man, and the whole concept about \u2018To Pimp a Butterfly\u2019 was to share that experience with them. To go back to Compton and to tell them what I have learned. It was me explaining my experiences and what emotions it brought up from those experiences. And tell them, \u2018Y\u2019all, it\u2019s something bigger than Compton where we from,’\u201d<\/strong> Oklama<\/a> explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Kendrick\u2019s 2023 African tour speeches stress the impact of the Bright Continent on his career, his biographer, \u201cThe Butterfly Effect\u201d (2020) author Marcus J. Moore readily agrees. \u201cUltimately, South Africa played a significant role in Kendrick\u2019s career, and in many ways, the time he spent there helped redirect the course of mainstream Black music If he hadn\u2019t taken that trip, or opened his eyes to the country\u2019s grand splendor, there\u2019d be no \u2018To Pimp a Butterfly.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFree and avant-garde jazz might still struggle to attract bigger groups of fans, and sonically challenging art might still be relegated to smaller venues. South Africa set the stage for Kendrick\u2019s greater act. It also allowed him to return to where it all started, this time with a clear head and a full heart.\u201d<\/strong> And, perhaps, there would be no \u201cBlack Panther\u201d soundtrack, at least not in the form that Kendrick curated it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years after TPAB, Lamar brought together South African music acts, Yugen Blakrock, Sjava Babes Wodumo and Saudi with more established American artists for the \u201cBlack Panther\u201d soundtrack. As Move Afrika expands its footprint on the home soil, more studio collaborations with Africa\u2019s globally outbound music scene will definitely be game-changing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published by <\/em>Unicorn Riot. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kendrick Lamar\u2019s hip hop career is a never-ending attempt to go back home. Despite American novelist Thomas Wolfe\u2019s singular warning, \u201cYou can\u2019t go back home to your family, back home to your romantic love, back home to a young man\u2019s dreams of glory and fame\u201d or \u201cback home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time,\u201d the highly regarded rapper wants to remember and return to his grounded place with each new album. But Kendrick soon finds, like many a prophet before him, that the direction home is not so much a circle as it is a road with a thousand forks. His moments of duality are neither the rights and wrongs of his cruel self-probing nor the tension between the Black prophetic mantle and the bright lights of Hollywood. The ultimate duality is that home is split in itself. Whether home means Compton on \u201cgood kid, m.A.A.d city\u201d (2012), Africa on \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d (2015), ego on \u201cDAMN!\u201d (2017) or family on \u201cMr. Morale and the Big Steppers\u201d (2022), its contours never settle in time to welcome the native. On the Black Power masterpiece \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly,\u201d the question is never decided whether the often repeated phrase, \u201cI came home,\u201d refers to Compton or Africa. Kendrick knows this. That\u2019s why a giant map of Africa labeled \u201cCompton\u201d provided a backdrop for his recent performance in Rwanda. The Compton native was back in the Bright Continent to headline the inaugural Move Afrika concert at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on December 6 and Hey Neighbor Festival at Legends Adventure Farm in Pretoria, South Africa, on December 9, 2023. He was back home for the third time, having previously toured South Africa in 2014 and visited Ghana in 2022. Kigali, Rwanda Mr. Morale kicked off his Rwanda performance to the full-throated African drums of his 2022 album opener, \u201cUnited in Grief.\u201d The crowd ecstatically sang along to \u201cN95,\u201d performed second in order of the tracklist. Making good on its rejection of digital civilization, the song was greeted with the life-size fabric placing Compton at the center of Africa, complemented with stage lighting, filtered overhead through multi-colored Agaseke baskets by Nyamirambo Women\u2019s Centre and Kitenge fabrics by Dolf Benza and Stufish. The Pan-Africanist backdrop was, of course, a relic from Lamar\u2019s iconic 2016 Grammy performance.  After crowning his five Grammys with performance of the night credit then, Kendrick told the Recording Academy that he had written \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d under the stimulus of his 2014 tour stop in South Africa. The recollection equally explained his choice of backdrop that night: \u201cI felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn\u2019t taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put together a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they\u2019re still in the ghettos of Compton.\u201d A few times between his 70-minute Move Afrika performance on December 6, Kendrick stopped the music to appreciate his spectators, mostly from Rwanda but also neighbors, Kenya and Uganda. \u201cIt\u2019s my first time on stage in front of my people,\u201d he told the 10 000-seater BK Arena, deep-diving into confessions and epiphanies along the set. \u201cEvery individual here, y\u2019all truly inspired me and I\u2019m sure everyone on my team feels the same way,\u201d he said but reserved special thanks for his spirited steppers, ballerinas and child dancers, hired from Rwanda\u2019s Sherrie Silver Foundation for the occasion, his fellow performers, including DJ Toxxyk and Bruce Melody, also from the host country, and Zuchu from Tanzania. Where TPAB is concerned, Oklama was understandably high on his own stash. \u201c\u2018To Pimp a Butterfly!\u2019 If I recollect properly, the reason of this album was because of Africa,\u201d he said in between a TPAB section that started with; \u201cKing Kunta,\u201d followed by \u201ci,\u201d \u201cInstitutionalized,\u201d \u201cThe Blacker the Berry,\u201d interrupted by \u201cLove,\u201d dedicated to Rwanda for the occasion, and closed by \u201cAlright.\u201d Some 12 Rwandan rappers, including Kivumbi King, Pro Zed, Angel Mutoni, Joe Logan, Bruce the 1st, Kenny Kshot, Maestroboomin and Prime got to pick Kendrick\u2019s brain before the Kigali concert, while some went on to curtain-raise for him after President Paul Kagame\u2019s speech. The young artists treasured nuggets from the \u201cbrother time,\u201d including the Compton emcee\u2019s advice to \u201c\u2026like yourself and be comfortable in positions of fear.\u201d For his part, the \u201cSavior\u201d rapper wants to be \u201cto be fearless in every word that I say, to be child-like\u201d so creative ideas come his way. \u201cI was saying to your local artists when I started doing music, I was just doing music for me, talking about my experiences, where I come from, giving medicine to the people around me that was going through things. That was the whole inspiration behind \u2018good kid, m.A.A.d city\u2019,\u201d Mr. Morale went into \u201cbrother time\u201d again at BK Arena. \u201cMany years from that day, I wouldn\u2019t have known I would be in Rwanda, Africa. But not only I am touching people in my community, but I am touching people right here,\u201d he intimated. \u201cI think from the moment I started writing, without me even knowing, subconsciously, my whole purpose was to evolve and learn myself and find myself and continue understanding who I am. And removing the perception of who I\u2019m perceived to be, I\u2019m still learning to this day,\u201d explained Mr. Morale. Towards the end of the show, Kendrick shared an epiphany in which his life was reflected in a young Rwandan interlocutor. Notably, the 2015 album owes some of its deeper cuts to Oklama\u2019s mythic encounters in South Africa: the young boy who turns out to be his ancestor in \u201cMomma,\u201d the old beggar who turns out to be God in \u201cHow Much a Dollar Cost\u201d and the \u201cghost of Mandela\u201d at Robben Island Prison in \u201cMortal Man.\u201d \u201cNo matter where you\u2019re around the world, if you really mean what you say, it don\u2019t matter where<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"yoast_head":"\nKendrick Lamar in Africa \u2013 Big Stepper's Heritage Plug | Blockspace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=2539\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kendrick Lamar in Africa \u2013 Big Stepper's Heritage Plug | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kendrick Lamar\u2019s hip hop career is a never-ending attempt to go back home. Despite American novelist Thomas Wolfe\u2019s singular warning, \u201cYou can\u2019t go back home to your family, back home to your romantic love, back home to a young man\u2019s dreams of glory and fame\u201d or \u201cback home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time,\u201d the highly regarded rapper wants to remember and return to his grounded place with each new album. But Kendrick soon finds, like many a prophet before him, that the direction home is not so much a circle as it is a road with a thousand forks. His moments of duality are neither the rights and wrongs of his cruel self-probing nor the tension between the Black prophetic mantle and the bright lights of Hollywood. The ultimate duality is that home is split in itself. Whether home means Compton on \u201cgood kid, m.A.A.d city\u201d (2012), Africa on \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d (2015), ego on \u201cDAMN!\u201d (2017) or family on \u201cMr. Morale and the Big Steppers\u201d (2022), its contours never settle in time to welcome the native. On the Black Power masterpiece \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly,\u201d the question is never decided whether the often repeated phrase, \u201cI came home,\u201d refers to Compton or Africa. Kendrick knows this. That\u2019s why a giant map of Africa labeled \u201cCompton\u201d provided a backdrop for his recent performance in Rwanda. The Compton native was back in the Bright Continent to headline the inaugural Move Afrika concert at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on December 6 and Hey Neighbor Festival at Legends Adventure Farm in Pretoria, South Africa, on December 9, 2023. He was back home for the third time, having previously toured South Africa in 2014 and visited Ghana in 2022. Kigali, Rwanda Mr. Morale kicked off his Rwanda performance to the full-throated African drums of his 2022 album opener, \u201cUnited in Grief.\u201d The crowd ecstatically sang along to \u201cN95,\u201d performed second in order of the tracklist. Making good on its rejection of digital civilization, the song was greeted with the life-size fabric placing Compton at the center of Africa, complemented with stage lighting, filtered overhead through multi-colored Agaseke baskets by Nyamirambo Women\u2019s Centre and Kitenge fabrics by Dolf Benza and Stufish. The Pan-Africanist backdrop was, of course, a relic from Lamar\u2019s iconic 2016 Grammy performance.  After crowning his five Grammys with performance of the night credit then, Kendrick told the Recording Academy that he had written \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d under the stimulus of his 2014 tour stop in South Africa. The recollection equally explained his choice of backdrop that night: \u201cI felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn\u2019t taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put together a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they\u2019re still in the ghettos of Compton.\u201d A few times between his 70-minute Move Afrika performance on December 6, Kendrick stopped the music to appreciate his spectators, mostly from Rwanda but also neighbors, Kenya and Uganda. \u201cIt\u2019s my first time on stage in front of my people,\u201d he told the 10 000-seater BK Arena, deep-diving into confessions and epiphanies along the set. \u201cEvery individual here, y\u2019all truly inspired me and I\u2019m sure everyone on my team feels the same way,\u201d he said but reserved special thanks for his spirited steppers, ballerinas and child dancers, hired from Rwanda\u2019s Sherrie Silver Foundation for the occasion, his fellow performers, including DJ Toxxyk and Bruce Melody, also from the host country, and Zuchu from Tanzania. Where TPAB is concerned, Oklama was understandably high on his own stash. \u201c\u2018To Pimp a Butterfly!\u2019 If I recollect properly, the reason of this album was because of Africa,\u201d he said in between a TPAB section that started with; \u201cKing Kunta,\u201d followed by \u201ci,\u201d \u201cInstitutionalized,\u201d \u201cThe Blacker the Berry,\u201d interrupted by \u201cLove,\u201d dedicated to Rwanda for the occasion, and closed by \u201cAlright.\u201d Some 12 Rwandan rappers, including Kivumbi King, Pro Zed, Angel Mutoni, Joe Logan, Bruce the 1st, Kenny Kshot, Maestroboomin and Prime got to pick Kendrick\u2019s brain before the Kigali concert, while some went on to curtain-raise for him after President Paul Kagame\u2019s speech. The young artists treasured nuggets from the \u201cbrother time,\u201d including the Compton emcee\u2019s advice to \u201c\u2026like yourself and be comfortable in positions of fear.\u201d For his part, the \u201cSavior\u201d rapper wants to be \u201cto be fearless in every word that I say, to be child-like\u201d so creative ideas come his way. \u201cI was saying to your local artists when I started doing music, I was just doing music for me, talking about my experiences, where I come from, giving medicine to the people around me that was going through things. That was the whole inspiration behind \u2018good kid, m.A.A.d city\u2019,\u201d Mr. Morale went into \u201cbrother time\u201d again at BK Arena. \u201cMany years from that day, I wouldn\u2019t have known I would be in Rwanda, Africa. But not only I am touching people in my community, but I am touching people right here,\u201d he intimated. \u201cI think from the moment I started writing, without me even knowing, subconsciously, my whole purpose was to evolve and learn myself and find myself and continue understanding who I am. And removing the perception of who I\u2019m perceived to be, I\u2019m still learning to this day,\u201d explained Mr. Morale. Towards the end of the show, Kendrick shared an epiphany in which his life was reflected in a young Rwandan interlocutor. Notably, the 2015 album owes some of its deeper cuts to Oklama\u2019s mythic encounters in South Africa: the young boy who turns out to be his ancestor in \u201cMomma,\u201d the old beggar who turns out to be God in \u201cHow Much a Dollar Cost\u201d and the \u201cghost of Mandela\u201d at Robben Island Prison in \u201cMortal Man.\u201d \u201cNo matter where you\u2019re around the world, if you really mean what you say, it don\u2019t matter where\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=2539\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-01-03T23:02:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-14T23:08:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Picture-14.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"15 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=2539#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=2539\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"hardsouth\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0\"},\"headline\":\"Kendrick Lamar in Africa \u2013 Big Stepper’s Heritage 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Despite American novelist Thomas Wolfe\u2019s singular warning, \u201cYou can\u2019t go back home to your family, back home to your romantic love, back home to a young man\u2019s dreams of glory and fame\u201d or \u201cback home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time,\u201d the highly regarded rapper wants to remember and return to his grounded place with each new album. But Kendrick soon finds, like many a prophet before him, that the direction home is not so much a circle as it is a road with a thousand forks. His moments of duality are neither the rights and wrongs of his cruel self-probing nor the tension between the Black prophetic mantle and the bright lights of Hollywood. The ultimate duality is that home is split in itself. Whether home means Compton on \u201cgood kid, m.A.A.d city\u201d (2012), Africa on \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d (2015), ego on \u201cDAMN!\u201d (2017) or family on \u201cMr. Morale and the Big Steppers\u201d (2022), its contours never settle in time to welcome the native. On the Black Power masterpiece \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly,\u201d the question is never decided whether the often repeated phrase, \u201cI came home,\u201d refers to Compton or Africa. Kendrick knows this. That\u2019s why a giant map of Africa labeled \u201cCompton\u201d provided a backdrop for his recent performance in Rwanda. The Compton native was back in the Bright Continent to headline the inaugural Move Afrika concert at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on December 6 and Hey Neighbor Festival at Legends Adventure Farm in Pretoria, South Africa, on December 9, 2023. He was back home for the third time, having previously toured South Africa in 2014 and visited Ghana in 2022. Kigali, Rwanda Mr. Morale kicked off his Rwanda performance to the full-throated African drums of his 2022 album opener, \u201cUnited in Grief.\u201d The crowd ecstatically sang along to \u201cN95,\u201d performed second in order of the tracklist. Making good on its rejection of digital civilization, the song was greeted with the life-size fabric placing Compton at the center of Africa, complemented with stage lighting, filtered overhead through multi-colored Agaseke baskets by Nyamirambo Women\u2019s Centre and Kitenge fabrics by Dolf Benza and Stufish. The Pan-Africanist backdrop was, of course, a relic from Lamar\u2019s iconic 2016 Grammy performance.  After crowning his five Grammys with performance of the night credit then, Kendrick told the Recording Academy that he had written \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly\u201d under the stimulus of his 2014 tour stop in South Africa. The recollection equally explained his choice of backdrop that night: \u201cI felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn\u2019t taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put together a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they\u2019re still in the ghettos of Compton.\u201d A few times between his 70-minute Move Afrika performance on December 6, Kendrick stopped the music to appreciate his spectators, mostly from Rwanda but also neighbors, Kenya and Uganda. \u201cIt\u2019s my first time on stage in front of my people,\u201d he told the 10 000-seater BK Arena, deep-diving into confessions and epiphanies along the set. \u201cEvery individual here, y\u2019all truly inspired me and I\u2019m sure everyone on my team feels the same way,\u201d he said but reserved special thanks for his spirited steppers, ballerinas and child dancers, hired from Rwanda\u2019s Sherrie Silver Foundation for the occasion, his fellow performers, including DJ Toxxyk and Bruce Melody, also from the host country, and Zuchu from Tanzania. Where TPAB is concerned, Oklama was understandably high on his own stash. \u201c\u2018To Pimp a Butterfly!\u2019 If I recollect properly, the reason of this album was because of Africa,\u201d he said in between a TPAB section that started with; \u201cKing Kunta,\u201d followed by \u201ci,\u201d \u201cInstitutionalized,\u201d \u201cThe Blacker the Berry,\u201d interrupted by \u201cLove,\u201d dedicated to Rwanda for the occasion, and closed by \u201cAlright.\u201d Some 12 Rwandan rappers, including Kivumbi King, Pro Zed, Angel Mutoni, Joe Logan, Bruce the 1st, Kenny Kshot, Maestroboomin and Prime got to pick Kendrick\u2019s brain before the Kigali concert, while some went on to curtain-raise for him after President Paul Kagame\u2019s speech. The young artists treasured nuggets from the \u201cbrother time,\u201d including the Compton emcee\u2019s advice to \u201c\u2026like yourself and be comfortable in positions of fear.\u201d For his part, the \u201cSavior\u201d rapper wants to be \u201cto be fearless in every word that I say, to be child-like\u201d so creative ideas come his way. \u201cI was saying to your local artists when I started doing music, I was just doing music for me, talking about my experiences, where I come from, giving medicine to the people around me that was going through things. That was the whole inspiration behind \u2018good kid, m.A.A.d city\u2019,\u201d Mr. Morale went into \u201cbrother time\u201d again at BK Arena. \u201cMany years from that day, I wouldn\u2019t have known I would be in Rwanda, Africa. But not only I am touching people in my community, but I am touching people right here,\u201d he intimated. \u201cI think from the moment I started writing, without me even knowing, subconsciously, my whole purpose was to evolve and learn myself and find myself and continue understanding who I am. And removing the perception of who I\u2019m perceived to be, I\u2019m still learning to this day,\u201d explained Mr. Morale. Towards the end of the show, Kendrick shared an epiphany in which his life was reflected in a young Rwandan interlocutor. Notably, the 2015 album owes some of its deeper cuts to Oklama\u2019s mythic encounters in South Africa: the young boy who turns out to be his ancestor in \u201cMomma,\u201d the old beggar who turns out to be God in \u201cHow Much a Dollar Cost\u201d and the \u201cghost of Mandela\u201d at Robben Island Prison in \u201cMortal Man.\u201d \u201cNo matter where you\u2019re around the world, if you really mean what you say, it don\u2019t matter where","og_url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=2539","og_site_name":"Blockspace","article_published_time":"2024-01-03T23:02:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-14T23:08:16+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":1080,"url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Picture-14.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"hardsouth","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"hardsouth","Est. reading time":"15 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