This is Part 2 of an ongoing series.
FEEL starts off with Kendrick repeating to himself “Ain’t nobody praying for me.” Almost like he does care, the opposite of how he felt on ELEMENT. In this song Kendrick hides in his career to hide from being cursed but he realizes he can’t hide there and has to open up. The whole song is how Kendrick feels with a lot of lines being “I feel like, blank.” He feels like no one is looking out for him and he feels like isolating himself. When he’s on the stage he feels amazing. He’s the best but he feels alone there and people in the rap game are Enemies. It’s a song of Kendricks weakness.
Kendrick realizes maybe the curse is real stating “ I feel like I can’t breathe, I feel like I can’t sleep.” Then we have LOYALTY.
LOYALTY is a direct response to FEEL. “I need loyalty.” No one is praying for Kendrick so he only wants loyal people close to him who would pray for him. But the real way to understand the message of this song is by watching the music video for it. In the music video you see two Kendricks, one dressed in white and one in black. The Kendrick in white is strangled to death almost like the Kendrick in black is finding a way to fix the problem of no one praying for him by getting rid of the people that are unloyal, even the parts of himself, a wicked way of doing it. And this leads to PRIDE
PRIDE is a beautiful song that starts with “Love is gonna get you killed but, Prides gonna be the death of you and me.” it’s hard to understand at first but when you look into it he is trying to say love will kill you physically but pride will affect you and the ones around you spiritually, another reason why he said, “Prides gonna be the death of you and me.” This brings you back to blood where Kendrick is killed by a gunshot while trying to help a blind woman, Kendrick might not have actually been killed but instead his spirit was shot. The lady said he lost his life by being too blinded by the success of his career. Through the album you start to realize that he is being infected more and more by PRIDE, his pride being his rap career he constantly talks about how he is the best in multiple songs. PRIDE is like the biggest sin. In the song he states he struggles with pride in his career saying “I don’t love people enough to put my faith in man, I put my faith in these lyrics.” He also says “In another life I surely was there,” In a perfect world not full of sin. Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace but with the humble, is wisdom.
