Kendrick Lamar Visits High School That Uses His Lyrics in Lessons

Kendrick Lamar's 2012 studio debut, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, was hailed as an instant classic by critics and fans. Its power was in its specificity, in the narrowness of its scope--not only was Kendrick's Compton unlike the rest of America, it was unlike N.W.A.'s Compton before it, or the Compton YG would explore a year later on My Krazy Life. But for his sophomore effort, this March's To Pimp a Butterfly, the Aftermath star tackled the complicated Black American experience. Butterfly is a latticework of political and musical influences, from jazz to funk to neo-soul, from Black Panther radicalism to the controversy over so-called respectability politics. All this and more was apparent to Brian Mooney, a New Jersey high school teacher who used To Pimp a Butterfly to teach his students during a unit about Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Yesterday (June 8), the rapper visited Mooney's school, observing a poetry reading and sitting on a panel that discussed hip-hop's place in education, among other things. According to the New York Times, Lamar engaged with several of the student poems, praising punchlines and offering supportive finger snaps.

To Pimp a Butterfly was not only hailed by educators and Kendrick's rapidly growing fan base; it also set single-day streaming records for Spotify, surpassing marks that had been set the previous month by Drake's If You're Reading This It's Too Late. This year has also seen Kendrick's score his first #1 hit on Billboard ("Bad Blood," his collaboration with Taylor Swift) and been honored by the California State Senate.

Watch a mini documentary about the visit put together by NPR and additional footage from the trip below (via Consequence of Sound).