S5E7 - ELEMENT. by Kendrick Lamar

Dissect

Cole Cuchna

Music, Society & Culture, Arts

4.9 • 10.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2019

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

ELEMENT. is a brutal meditation on Kung Fu Kenny’s intuition toward preemptive violence. But upon analysis we realize that beneath Kenny’s aggression is an underlying fear of his family going back to a life of poverty. In this way, the track exemplifies how self-preservational pride tilts toward death and destruction. Say hi @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Purchase Dissect merch at https://shop.dissectpodcast.com/. Listen to original Dissect themes on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2k8BsZM. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spark your creativity with the Sims. Sometimes you might feel like you're not creative
0:07.0	and you have to go in search of your creative spark again. Maybe this is catching up with creative
0:11.9	friends, experimenting with a new look or trying out a new recipe.
0:16.0	And thanks to The Sims, inspiration is just one game and one spark away.
0:21.0	Ready to spark something? Download the Sims 4 and play for free.
0:27.0	From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form Analysis, broken into short digestible episodes.
0:35.2	I'm your host Cole Kushna. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Today we continue our serialized examination of Dam by Kendrick Lamar.
1:03.7	On our last episode, we dissected the album's third track, Yaa.
1:07.9	There we were formally introduced to Dam's protagonist, Kung Fu Kenny,
1:12.0	who throughout the song was receiving a call from
1:14.0	Yaw Wei the personal name for the god of Israel. But rather than answer God's
1:19.0	call, Kenny instead makes a conscious decision to follow his intuition.
1:24.1	This decision immediately leads to Kenny pursuing sex, money, and murder.
1:28.3	The very three things he claimed were in the DNA of mankind on the album's second track.
1:33.0	Thus, the implication seemed to be that if humans abandon God and are left to our own devices,
1:38.0	we will inevitably pursue the wicked vices that lead to a cursed existence.
1:42.0	Within the context of the wickedness, weakness, vices that lead to a cursed existence.
1:43.0	Within the context of the wickedness weakness dichotomy laid out in dam's opening moments,
1:47.8	it would seem that Kenny is on the track of the wicked, something that will become crystal clear
1:52.0	in the album's next track, the subject of our episode today,
1:55.0	Element. Make It look sexy. If I gotta go hard on the bitch, I'm gonna make it look sexy.
2:07.0	Element is written and produced by Kendrick Lamar, James Blake, Soundwave,
	...

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