Sing about me, i'm dying of thirst: o rap como testemunho na obra de Kendrick Lamar

Abstract

Testimonial narratives are studied by literary critics considering personal records of experiences of state violence, where the individual traumatic experience illustrates a broader context, mainly one in which the narrative given by the victims (of dictatorships, genocides, wars, etc.) is suppressed by the official historiographical and cultural narrative. In this work, through the work of the American rapper Kendrick Lamar, we seek to understand hip-hop as an artistic-cultural movement of resistance and rap, as one of its facets, as a possibility to communicate, build memory and, therefore, bear witness. In the analysis, we seek to demonstrate, through its testimonial traits, how Lamar's work challenges the narratives and representations about African American communities, providing "his version of the facts" and enabling the creation of memory.