His and Her Vices
Section.80, by Kendrick Lamar, is about the struggle for identity, in African-Americans born during the era of crack and Ronald Reagan politics. The album’s title Section.80, refers to Compton, California’s section 8 project housing community and the generation of people born in the 1980’s. The story follows the trap of reckless behaviors that America’s poor black communities falls victim to, due to institutionalized racism that causes self-hate, nihilism and oppression. According to Kendrick, oppression inhibits a person’s ability to find their identity. Section.80’s main focus, is about the struggle oppressed males have in finding a masculine identity. Their oppression causes insecurities that come out as vices that affect…show more content… The song is based on the crack/cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, which believed to have contributed to the increase in kids born with ADHD. In this song, the character K-dot is at a party doing drugs with a girl. Kendrick starts rapping the hook by listing all sorts of drugs (vices) followed by “Nigga fuck that”, kendrick sets up various themes emphasized throughout the song. He uses voice inflections on the hook to convey deeper meanings and introduce various interpretations via the triple entendre (that, thought, K-dot). The entendre expresses that drugs can kill thoughts, making people feel care free, as seen with the female character, “And the fact that she just might open up, when the Nuvo start to drown”. Nuvo is a mixture of champagne and vodka. Another stylistic thing that Kendrick does, is jump from vice to vice (bud to alcohol to pills) with a short, quick delivery to bring the listener inside the mind of someone with ADHD. This lyrically mimics the short attention associated with ADHD. The song provides a subtle commentary on how easily this pill-popping generation jumps from vice to vice to numb their pain and insecurities, with no thought or regard given to what they are doing. The crack riddled environment that Kendrick’s generation grew up in, along with their ADHD habits, has made them desensitized to the impact of drugs. ADHD and pill popping is part of this generations