The first song I chose is “m.A.A.d City” by Kendrick Lamar. It is a song that showcases the realities of his childhood, growing up in a low-income area where he experienced things such as gang violence, drug abuse, poverty, and more. Within the lyrics, he tells a story that brings up these social justice issues, while also providing a catchy song that keeps listeners engaged. It ended up becoming a very popular song on his album, working as both a means of entertainment, as well a protest to those sorts of issues that are commonly occurring throughout the country. Through more research, this song will inevitably expose me to the rest of the album, which provides similar themes and a sort of storyline for listeners. As a rap song, it exhibits a lot of the typical expectations you would have, however, puts an intriguing twist on it, which really drew me into this song in particular.

I find a lot of Kendrick Lamar’s songs to be extremely well-done and entertaining, as well as thoughtful and purposeful when it comes to advocating for or spreading awareness of certain issues. Kendrick Lamar does this in many of his songs, so I wasn’t shocked when this song became a new favorite of mine. I haven’t done extensive amounts of research on it yet, but I don’t think that I will have too many concerns about completing this project. The only concern I have is that this song is part of an album that can be seen as a storyline, so I’m not sure if it’ll be a problem for me to focus specifically on this one. However, I think this song has plenty to analyze on its own.

The second song that I chose is “Breakfast” by Dove Cameron. This song came out in 2022 and is essentially about women’s rights and the discrimination that women face even in this day and age. The music video is what really shows the listeners what this song is about. The lyrics themselves clearly still show a sense of power for women by saying “I eat boys like you for breakfast”, however, the music video really speaks volumes. It came out after Roe V Wade was overturned and at the end of the music video, it shows a clip of someone announcing this and how it has been a huge step back. The final clip says “Not The End”. Also throughout the whole music video, the roles were reversed. Gender stereotypes were reflected and reversed, meaning the women were wearing suits and such, whilst the men had women stereotypes. Everything about this song and music video withholds a lot of advocating for women’s rights and protests to Roe V Wade being overturned, showing there are still issues to be solved for for women to truly be equal. The time it came out was truly impeccable timing.

This song and music video mean a lot to me because as a woman, I am obviously a big advocate for women’s rights, as well as equality for everyone in general. I feel like this song relays this issue well by giving a sense of power to women who listen to the song, while also showing things that must change (such as Roe V Wade being overturned) in the music video. One concern I may have for using this song is the lyrics could be interpreted differently without the context of the music video. However, with the music video, I feel as if I will have no problem with doing my project on this song.