Activists at Cleveland State University repurposed a Kendrick Lamar track during a protest against police harassment, which saw an officer use pepper spray on a crowd.
Footage shows the group chanting the chorus to Lamar’s track Alright, which appeared on his most recent album To Pimp a Butterfly, as they stand off with police at the protest.
Lamar has become one of the most outspoken rap artists about violence affecting African American communities. Some critics have compared To Pimp a Butterfly to the work of Ralph Ellison and Alex Haley, novelists who summed up the lives of black Americans.
Speaking to the Observer, Lamar discussed the inspiration behind his track The Blacker the Berry: “It’s already in your blood because I am Trayvon Martin, you know. I’m all of these kids. It’s already implanted in your brain to come out your mouth as soon as you’ve seen it on the TV. I had that track way before that, from the beginning to the end, and the incident just snapped it for me.”
Other tracks that have become protest songs in recent years include Pow! by Lethal Bizzle, which was dubbed “an anthem for kettled youth” around the time of tuition fees protests in London.
