Wale - The Kramer

TSS writes about this Wale song “The Kramer” from his Mixtape About Nothing. I almost put this song on this month’s audiocast but didn’t. via The Smoking Section.

Wale – The Kramer

Though there are a lot of “mixtape” cuts that allow Wale to just show how ill of an MC he is, he takes time to truly construct great conceptual masterpieces. Not the least of which is “The Kramer.” Wale creates a musical Babushka Doll in which the song begins with a very wide view analyzing the societal ramifications of using the “N word” then becoming more personal with each line.

Early lines like “Who gonna speak for us, who gonna plea for us/Who gonna be the new head N.I.C. for us/ Who gonna defend us when crooked police want us?/I’m just an insecure N-I-G er” offer glimpses into the fragile psyche of a man lost in the quagmire of modern day race relations.

The second verse peels of the outer layers and delves specifically into the way the word is used by his peers. “And (Master) P said that I should stop sayin nigga/but if I did what would be the difference…/ there’d still be niggas out there killin/there’d still be white people out to get us.” He repeats the word “still” to illuminate the fact that these arguments and contradictions about the word are keeping us from moving on to a resolution.

The song reaches its emotional peak when Wale takes us into the mind of a Black kid in an all White school of students who feel its okay to recite the “N word” that the rappers use in their songs.

The final scene in absolutely gripping as Wale paints a picture of a kid full of self-loathing. He has allowed the use of the word to get out of hand and hates himself for letting his White friends use it freely.

There are a bevy of topics related to the use of the “N Word” and far too many points of view to encapsulate every nuance of the word in only four minutes. However, Wale parses out some key points related to the controversy and thoroughly deconstructs the psychological trials associated with its uses.

My good folks, this is how a “Nigger” song should go.