To Pimp A Butterfly is a rap album by Kendrick Lamar. It’s widely considered one of the greatest rap albums of all time, and for good reason. Lamar combines rap with alternate jazz music in many different parts of the album.
In the album, Lamar discusses the rise to fame in the music industry. More specifically, he details how many rappers are forced to fit into a certain personality/image in order to make it. In the last song on the album, “Mortal Man”, he writes a poem using the image of a caterpillar and a butterfly. The caterpillar is someone just trying to survive in the situation that they’ve been put in. It notices that the world pays no attention to him, but the world praises the butterfly, which represents successful people in general, but in Lamar’s case, successful rappers. This makes the caterpillar want to be like the butterfly, but it’s stuck inside of the cocoon, which represents things that marginalize people, such as school, the government, or the music industry. However, the cocoon is what allows the caterpillar to form its own outlooks on life. It can form its ideas about the cocoon, and as it realizes how bad the cocoon can be for it, it breaks out and transforms into a butterfly.
I feel like this relates to the American Dream heavily because many different parts of American culture require you to fit in with others. However, it is this struggle which causes people to realize flaws within the system, allowing themselves to be more conscious of what’s going on around them. The activism that Lamar preaches in this album reflects a call to improve society and make it more equitable for everyone.