Congratulations to our 2024 First in the Family Humanist Forward Freethought Scholarship Awardees!
Story Map of Our Tree
By Paco Navarro, Elliot Schweitzer, Keevan Kearns, Adia Gardner, Luca Rudenstine and Zoe Vuillermet
Unlike a typical family tree, the legacies of enslaved resistance songs are the roots of our project. Their melodic, lyrical, and political significance has informed generations of Black liberatory music, and continue to impact music today.
The trunk, or “base,” of our tree is the Harlem Renaissance and a little bit of modern soul. These are the tunes of resilience, joy, and self-actualization that put Black artists into the spotlight.
Caught in the lower branches of the tree are 90’s hip-hop influences. Now with beats and a new form of musical composition, lyrics follow a scheme that allows the audience to absorb political messaging in new emotional capacities.
The top of the tree is Kendrick Lamar’s award-winning album, To Pimp a Butterfly.
Each of these moments have a clear through line; Black self-actualization and resilience through musical expressions and political commentary. Music provides an outlet for emotional processing, creative expression, and economic mobility that is a lineage in itself worth treating like a family.
Contemporary: To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
This album is a masterful exploration of themes such as racial inequality, self-discovery, and social justice. The metaphorical significance of the album’s title lies in its reflection on the struggles and complexities of being a Black man in America.
The title suggests that society tries to manipulate and control individuals, especially those from marginalized communities, akin to catching and pinning down a butterfly. The butterfly symbolizes freedom, beauty, and transformation. By implying “to pimp” rather than “to catch” or “to control,” Lamar suggests a more insidious and exploitative process. Pimping implies exploitation for personal gain, which mirrors the exploitation and manipulation of Black culture and identity by societal forces.
In essence, “To Pimp a Butterfly” serves as a commentary on the ways in which systemic oppression, economic disparity, and social constructs attempt to suppress the innate beauty, creativity, and freedom of individuals, particularly those from marginalized communities. Through his music and lyrics, Lamar challenges listeners to confront the harsh realities of contemporary society while also offering messages of hope, resilience, and empowerment.
The album is arguably Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus, and also one of the most influential pieces of African American humanist music of all time. It’s profoundly political with its cries to break the institution that he was raised in and to not allow himself to be pimped by the music industry. It is anti-capitalist and anti-colonial by deconstructing the nature of American society for Black folks. The basic take away from this album are central to African American humanist tenets; namely respect folks in the community, practice self care, love yourself, and learn about your cultural heritage. We believe that the album represents an inherited legacy of humanist practices as a form of achieving Black social prosperity, creativity, and self-actualization.
Paco, Keevan, Zoe, Luca, Adia and Elliot were students in Pitzer College’s 2024 African American Humanism course
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