Section 8 housing provides a place to live for millions of low income Americans. Though this represents a massive victory over homelessness and poverty, there is a darker side to the housing program. Within the walls of many section 8 apartment complexes can be found gangs, drugs, racism and crime. From Queens to Compton, the most notorious ghettos in the United States are home to section 8 residences. Kendrick Lamar’s album Section .80 explores the problems faced by those in low income housing, many of which Kendrick traces back to the 1980’s. Through his album we can better understand the under documented struggles of the lower class and how goings-on three decades ago still affect people today.
Section .80 begins with the song F*ck Your Ethnicity. The song opens with a skit that is revisited throughout the album, and introduces the recurring characters of Keshia and Tammy. A group of people, including Keisha and Tammy, are welcomed around a fire. The speaker observes that he can see people of all races and backgrounds in the group, then exclaims “fuck your ethnicity.” The speaker doesn’t care what race anyone is, as the problems they gathered to talk about affect each and every person there, regardless of the colour of their skin. The skit ends and Kendrick starts rapping, opening by identifying that hip-hop saved his life and is what allowed him to escape the crime and poverty in his hometown of Compton. Hip-hop did this in two ways. Most obviously it gave Kendrick a way out of the ghetto, providing him a medium with which he could share his experiences and become a star. Rap took Kendrick from a house he lived in through the section 8 housing program to multiple million dollar homes. More importantly however, it gave Kendrick a way to release his built up frustrations and anger at the injustice around him. Listening to the words of previous rappers calmed him down and guided him in life, while writing down notebooks and notebooks worth of his own lyrics allowed him to express how he was feeling and what he was seeing. As was explained in the biography, Kendrick saw and experienced an awful lot of violence, racism and crime, and hip-hop saved him from participating in it as a way to express himself. The rest of the song is made up of Kendrick’s thoughts on racism. With “What the fuck is you fighting for? Ain't nobody gon' win that war”, the lack of ability for racism and an us versus them mentality to be successful is communicated. What is the point of racism if it doesn’t benefit anybody? Kendrick points out that his fans are as diverse as it gets, and that said diversity shows that racism is not inevitable, that everyone can come together over common issues. Kendrick ascended from a position of poverty to one of fame and fortune, and has made it his duty to share everything he can with his fans and those around him. He doesn’t sit backstage before his shows, he interacts with fans and shares in on their excitement. He sees himself as not superior to his fans, but equal to them. Just like any two races are equal, Kendrick and those who listen to his music are equal too. At the end of the first verse, Kendrick introduces the concept of HiiiPoWeR for the first time. As has been explained previously, HiiiPoWeR is a movement started by Kendrick and several other West Coast rappers in response to the destructive culture modern day hip-hop has adopted. Each “i” in HiiiPoWeR stands for one of the three main qualities Kendrick believes an individual should have; heart, honour and respect. The PoWeR is stylized to represent “poor we are”. Both the qualities and the expression are recurring themes of the album. The second verse begins with Kendrick clarifying that even though everyone is equal regardless of race, they are not currently treated that way today. Echoing the words of Malcom X, Kendrick makes it clear that anyone who says everyone is equal in the eyes of the government and of society is purposefully misleading you. As a result, people need to keep pushing for a truly racially equal world. After stating all this, Kendrick willingly admits that he is no expert, “no Einstein before calculus” but that he is a great rapper. The verse finishes off with a group of lines so filled with double meanings and metaphors that Kendrick makes even himself say “woah… gross.” The song itself concludes with Kendrick stating he is only the messenger, sharing his thoughts and experiences, and stating that in his eyes, if the qualities of heart, honour and respect emphasized by the HiiiPoWeR movement aren’t adopted, those who fail to adopt them will fail in life.
The second track, Hol’ Up, contributes little to the themes of the album. Kendrick tells the tale of him having sex with a flight attendant in a plane while it's flying, but reveals this story to be symbolic for his entrance into the hip-hop community and skills as a rapper. This, taken into consideration with Kendrick’s statements in the first song that he is no expert and that he is just sharing his thoughts and experiences, give the listener reason to listen. Kendrick knows that he is good at rhyming and expressing himself, yet also admits that his anecdotal stories are not equitable to facts. By letting the listener know he knows this he establishes that he is self aware, and makes it easy for the listener to entertain his ideas without necessarily agreeing with them.
Song number three, A.D.H.D., dives into drugs and addiction. The 1980’s were home to a massive crack cocaine epidemic that left thousands addicted in Los Angeles alone. Kendrick expresses his disapproval of heavy drug consumption and illustrates the dangers of it in the song. Describing taking a pair of pills and a half dosage of cocaine in addition to a large amount of alcohol serves as the track’s intro. The first verse immediately paints the picture of one of Kendrick’s friends so under the influence of drugs that he can’t stand up. Kendrick picks his friend up and sits him down in cold water and gets someone to grab him some Vicodin to calm him down and “take the pain away”. This demonstrates the extreme reliance on drugs that is becoming more common in society. Kendrick’s friend is extremely impaired by drugs, and the solution to the problem is to give him more drugs. Furthermore, the Vicodin is given so his friend feels better about the stuff that has got him down, specifically his life of poverty and section 8 housing. The verse goes on to portray smoking marijuana and binge drinking to make oneself feel better. As the verse ends, Kendrick sees a girl he is attracted too and watches her snort some Adderall. He says she has ADHD, but she is clearly abusing the Adderall and claiming ADHD as an excuse to do so. Kendrick begins conversing with this girl in verse two, who is speaking with Kendrick very confidently and privately, even though they are at a party. This is due to the Adderall she took kicking in. Their conversation continues, and Kendrick asks her how old she is. She is 22, and Kendrick is 23. Upon learning his age, she states that the two of them are crack babies. This intrigues Kendrick, who asks for clarification, but she changes the subject and asks where her drink is. She is too focused on the consumption of drugs to finish her conversation. Kendrick tries to calm her down, and just as it works someone walks into the room with “a pound of that Bay Area kush”. The woman Kendrick was with sees the weed and immediately grabs some and lights up. Just before re-entering a drug impaired state, she tells Kendrick "You know why we crack babies? Because we born in the '80s, that A.D.H.D. crazy." Regardless of if their mothers did crack, both of them are crack babies due to the widespread effects of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980’s. Anyone born in the 80’s was impacted, even if it wasn’t directly. She also blames ADHD for her behavior. She initiated an intimate situation with Kendrick, yet ended it because she got distracted by some weed. She doesn’t actually have ADHD, but her reliance on drugs makes her behaviour comparable to someone with the disorder.
The fourth track, No Make-Up (Her Vice), tells the story of a man who thinks his girlfriend is beautiful and doesn’t need all the makeup she wears. The girlfriend in question is Keisha, and the song characterizes her in order to set-up her later song. The first verse is composed of Kendrick asking why she has to wear so much makeup when she is naturally beautiful. He admires the time and attention to detail it takes for her to put it on, but doesn’t understand why she does it. He believes her imperfections are gifts from God, and expresses that he loves everything about her without it being covered up. This acts as a parallel to other substances that are overused to change a person, namely alcohol and drugs. Abuse of makeup is compared to abuse of psychoactives. Instead of facing reality, people cover themselves up with makeup or take drugs to alter their mood and how they see the world. Why deal with insecurities if you can hide them instead? Why handle the pain if you can drink it away? The comparison continues into the second verse, where the lines of the first verse are generally repeated, however the girlfriend begins speaking. She attempts to tell her own side, but Kendrick keeps cutting her off and finishing the lines the way he did in the first verse. After an entire verse of this, the song ends with the girlfriend saying “It's the beauty in me, but what he don't see, Is that I had a black ey-” and Kendrick saying “To be continued… eleven.” Suddenly it is revealed that the girlfriend was putting on so much makeup to hide signs of abuse from her boyfriend. Kendrick thought she was wearing it for certain reasons, but could not imagine the depth and darkness of her true motivations for putting on so much makeup. This applies to the drug parallel as well. Though Kendrick criticizes those who overuse drugs, he admits that he cannot be certain why they do so. The cliffhanger ending is continued in the eleventh track, Keisha’s Song (Her Evils).
Skipping to Keisha’s Song, Kendrick paints a gloomy picture of a prostitute. She hates doing what she is doing but feels impossibly trapped in it. The song dives into why Keisha is selling her body on the streets, and exposes that her promiscuous behavior all started when her mother’s boyfriend molested her at the age of nine. The boyfriend was trafficking cocaine, and her mother let him live in the house to reap the rewards of free crack. This opened up the opportunity for the boyfriend to molest Keisha, which in turn caused her to end up as a prostitute. This serves as one example of how the crack epidemic of the 1980’s had lasting effects. After learning Keisha’s story and gaining a sense of empathy for her, the song ends with Kendrick saying Keisha got in the backseat of a customer’s car as usual “And caught a knife inside the bladder, left for dead, raped in the street”. The abrupt and brutal end to the song parallels the abrupt and brutal end to Keisha’s life. In the following lines, Kendrick says he played this song for his eleven year old sister the day he wrote it. This was done in order to prevent his sister from falling down the same path as Keisha, who was locked into her fate by the 80’s crack epidemic.
Jumping back to track five, Tammy’s Song (Her Evils) tells a much more lighthearted story than Keisha’s Song. The song opens with Kendrick introducing Tammy, an attractive, wealthy woman with a Mercedes Benz that he and his friends always try to hit up. Even though her appearance makes her seem like the selfish type, she always ignores anyone flirting with her, declaring herself loyal to her man. This all changes when she notices her guy was acting suspicious, and checks his phone in the middle of the night. She discovers Erica, another woman who her man has been cheating on her with. He refuses to admit he was unfaithful, and Tammy decides to do to him what he did to her. She calls another man she had on speed dial and cheats on her boyfriend with him. The song continues by introducing another girl, who is also a personification of Tammy. This Tammy is also attractive, but dresses differently, “Keep her hair tied up, big bamboos, Mike Jordan kicks.” Regardless of this physical difference, she reacts the same way the first girl did whenever any guy flirts with her, by declaring herself loyal to her man. Once again, said man starts acting suspicious, and Tammy finds Magnum condoms in his pocket. He isn’t using them with her, and when he admits they are his she punches him in the eye and leaves the house, driving away, with another guy smiling in the passenger seat. Just like the first Tammy, Tammy cheats on her man as he cheated on her. The final verse depicts both Tammy's upset by what happened and fed up with men, to an extent where they get curious and decide to pleasure each other instead of relying on a man. As Kendrick worded it, “The minute she hit the block and turn left, she’ll be turning dyke.” The song depicts the negative impact modern hip-hop culture has, as it depicts men cheating as an accomplishment.
Chapter Six, the sixth song, serves as an interlude, and introduces the idea that the Reagan administration is partially responsible for the ongoing problems of the ‘80’s. It also continues the skit from the start of F*ck Your Ethnicity.
Ronald Reagan Era, track number seven, paints a dark picture of Compton. It highlights the drug abuse, violence and gang warfare that Compton has become known for. The danger of the gangs, specifically the Crips, the Bloods and the Surenos. Regardless of this danger, Kendrick states that he is on all the gang’s good sides and interacts with them, and that he loves doing so. Having three competing gangs all enjoy Kendricks music also further outlines the diversity of his fanbase, which was first touched on in F*ck Your Ethnicity. The song also suggests that the policies of the Reagan government, such as defunding public housing and continuing the failed War on Drugs are partially responsible for all the problems looked at in the album and in the song. Drug abuse, especially the crack epidemic, could have been prevented with effective strategies to combat drugs as opposed to the militaristic enforcement and ridiculously strict sentences that were enacted. A fair amount of gang violence and crime stem from the drug trade, and these would have been limited with effective deterrents against narcotics. Defunding housing left more Americans on the streets or struggling to make ends meet, creating a need to make money through illegal ways, be that robberies, drug trafficking or prostitution. Finally, racism needs to be fully eliminated at a government level before there can be any hope of it ending within the population of the United States. Many of these problems perpetuate each other, and the Reagan government failed to stop them.
The eighth song, Poe Man’s Dreams (His Vice), warns against the danger of giving into a person’s desires. It opens with Kendrick recalling how he used to think being a criminal was cool, and that since his uncles were in prison he would be heading the same way. At the time his parents were both stressed and tired, and he feared for his life on the streets of Compton. He expressed his need to get a gun for protection, and that church ministers can’t possibly save him when he doesn’t hear God. He was basing his decisions off instincts, not morals. He tries to clean up his act, but “My hands dirty, You worried 'bout mud in your sink.” People were unwilling to help Kendrick because the mud from his hands may get in their sinks, or his reputation may soil theirs. Recognizing this, Kendrick decided he would do the opposite. He would try to help even those already above him. He would be loyal, supporting his friends through thick and thin. He started living by morals instead of by instinct, standing for something instead of falling for anything. Kendrick still lives this way to this day, and his music expresses it. He writes to help people, and anyone can relate to what he writes. Instead of giving into his vices and instincts, Kendrick did what was good for others, specifically those that supported him, and it brought him to where he is now.
The Spiteful Chant, track nine, builds off of Kendrick’s ideas in Poe Man’s Dreams. The song is about persevering through adversity in order to achieve success. The song also reinforces the importance of HiiiPoWeR, of heart, honour and respect. Kendrick and ScHoolboy Q, who is featured in the song, are going big because of HiiiPoWeR.
Chapter Ten, song number ten, acts as an interlude as Chapter Six did. Also like Chapter Six, it revisits the skit from F*ck Your Ethnicity.
Track twelve, Rigamortus, is Kendrick’s glory song, where he raps all about his skills with the mic, comparing his dominance over other rappers to them being affected by rigor mortis after death.
The thirteenth song, Kush & Corinthians, moves away from the kick-ass attitude that had been building since Poe Man’s Dreams and peaked in Rigamortus. Kendrick returns to some deeper thoughts, in this case about how sin and giving into vices is wrong, but how being human means giving into temptation sometimes. In the first verse, Kendrick expresses that this Earth isn’t the greatest place to be. Heaven is a definite improvement from life on this planet. He then begins to wonder if he’ll even make it into Heaven. He admits that “I'm a loser, I'm a winner, I'm good, I'm bad, I'm a Christian, I'm a sinner, I'm humble, I'm loud, I'm righteous, I'm a killer.” Kendrick, like all humans, does both good and bad. This statement is followed by the hook, which urges people to live their lives to the fullest, and recognize that humans should avoid giving into their vices when possible, but accept that they will sometimes fall to sin. Doing so is apart of being human. In the bridge, Kendrick is on his way to retaliate with a drive by shooting in response to something someone else did. He begins to ponder if retaliation is human nature, and if it's even necessary, then brushes away the thought, too caught up in the moment. The hook repeats, and the second verse starts with Kendrick balancing between the Bible and smoking weed, an analogy for good and bad. He contemplates good and bad, and concludes that everyone sins, and that anyone who claims otherwise is automatically a liar and a sinner. Even after this conclusion, the verse continues with Kendrick having a hard time accepting his sins. Even though sinning is invertible, he still must avoid it. The hook repeats, and the third verse, spoken by BJ the Chicago Kid, reflects on the passing of someone close to him, and how everyone must live their lives to the fullest because life could end at any moment.
Blow My High (Members Only), the fourteenth track, is a memorial song to R&B singer Aaliyah, who died at the age of 22. It’s main connection to the rest of the album is that it reinforces the idea in Kush & Corinthians that we must live our lives to the fullest, for the could end at any time.
Track fifthteen, Ab Souls Outro, clarifies everything discussed in Section .80, summarizing all the topics and the problems that stemmed from the 1980’s. The final verse of the outro includes Kendrick making it clear to listeners that everything he said throughout the album is just his opinion and experiences, not hard, universal facts. No one has to agree with what he is saying, but he had to say it out of a duty to those who are living how he once lived, to those who need the help and to God. It is more important to him that people listen to him and form their own beliefs than listen to him and agree with him. This extends upon his statement in F*ck Your Ethnicity that he is no expert and is just sharing his thoughts and experiences. The outro ends by concluding the skit that began in F*ck Your Ethnicity.
The final and sixteenth track, HiiiPoWeR, describes the HiiiPoWeR movement and restates that it is key for success. It directly confronts the problems that stemmed from the 1980’s as opposed to sugarcoating them or ignoring them as the media often does. It also shows how the problems can be overcome with heart, honour and respect. For more details on the song and the movement, read the annotations for it.
Section .80 exposes the struggles of America’s poor for all to hear. It connects actions and events of the 1980’s with problems that still ripple on today. It dives into the crime, drugs, gangs and racism that can be found within and nearby section 8 housing, but also explains how to overcome them through HiiiPoWeR. As a result of its educational value, Kendrick’s album will be played for years to come.
