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Kendrick Lamar · S5 E4
King Kunta
A bass riff from 'We Want the Funk,' a slave narrative, and the cockiest strut on the album
A bass line drops like a dare. Kendrick Lamar opens his mouth and the first thing out is "I got a bone to pick," the cockiest opening line on an album full of them.
James Brown, Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (1970). The godfather of funk and the spiritual ancestor of everything King Kunta became. Watch this and you'll hear exactly where Kendrick's strut comes from: the locked-in groove, the razor-sharp horns, and a frontman who moves like he owns every room he's ever walked into.
Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, James Brown (1970)
The track that invented the template King Kunta borrows from. James Brown strips the band down to drums, bass, and a single guitar riff, creating a groove so tight it could cut glass. The horns punch in and out instead of sustaining, a technique that shows up all over TPAB. Brown's vocal calls, the "get up, get on up" chants, are the direct ancestors of Kendrick's own cadence on King Kunta.
Sources
James Brown. "Sex Machine." King Records, 1970.
The Name
King Kunta is named after Kunta Kinte, the enslaved African from Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots. In the story, Kunta Kinte has part of his foot severed to stop him from running. Kendrick flips this: "everybody wanna cut the legs off him," he raps, turning the industry's attempts to hold him down into a slave catcher's violence. The song takes that mutilation and walks anyway, limping and still owning the room.
Sources
Haley, Alex. "Roots: The Saga of an American Family." Doubleday, 1976.
Roots (TV miniseries), ABC, 1977
TAP TO REVEAL: Where does King Kunta's bass line actually come from?
“King Kunta is me talking my shit. After everything I went through with the Grammys, with the doubters, I earned the right to walk like that.”
— Kendrick Lamar, Billboard cover story, 2015
In the TV miniseries Roots, what punishment does Kunta Kinte suffer that Kendrick references in King Kunta's hook?
You Ain't Gotta Lie (Momma Said), Kendrick Lamar (2015)
Track fourteen on TPAB. Where King Kunta calls out the haters, this song goes after the fakers. Kendrick watches people in his circle lie about their money, their connections, their lives, and tells them to stop. The jazz-funk production mirrors King Kunta's swagger but trades anger for weary wisdom.
You Ain't Gotta Lie (Momma Said), Kendrick Lamar (2015)
Read the lyrics while you listen. Kendrick drops specific situations from his real life, calling out behaviors he's watched up close. The repeated refrain is both an accusation and an invitation: stop pretending. Just be real.
King Kunta: The Numbers
The strut doesn't last. Pharrell sends Kendrick a beat, and what comes back is the protest anthem that Black Lives Matter will adopt as its rallying cry. Next: Alright.
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