Kendrick Lamar has dropped the first official single from his as yet untitled fourth album, by way of Humble, which follows promo single The Heart Part 4 just two weeks earlier. Check out the video for Humble below.
Rumours of Lamar’s new album dropping this Friday, April 7 persist after The Heart Part 4 finished on the lyric: “Y’all got til April the 7th to get y’all shit together”.
While we’ll find out the answer to that puzzle soon, in the meantime Humble is sparking some controversy all its own. It revolves around his “feminist” critique of beauty standards and rally cry: “I’m so fuckin’ sick and tired of the Photoshop/ Show me somethin’ natural like afro on Richard Pryor/ Show me somethin’ natural like ass with some stretch marks”.
As The Conversation points out, “In requesting an afro, in yearning for some stretch marks, Lamar is still asking women to fulfil his wants.” It seems that despite good intentions, a broad cross-section of women don’t really want a man telling them whether a more natural look is for them, any more than make up and photoshop isn’t.
As ever, opinions are likely to differ wildly on whether this is political correctness gone mad or whether there’s a valid discussion to be had. We’re just happy the conversation is being had at all, and something tells us Kendrick might feel the same way.
