The End Of Universality

I'm sure you've seen the many videos and screeds interpreting Kendrick Lamar's performance on Sunday night. I have no doubt that his show was inspiring, a victory lap for his fans. But unlike in the pre-internet era, not everybody is a fan of anybody, and assuming so is a fool's errand. If you didn't know/couldn't follow Lamar's lyrics, you couldn't truly get the import of Samuel L. Jackson's introductions.

Now if you're a fan of Kendrick, if you followed last year's rap battle, it might have all made sense. But despite "Not Like Us" winning the Grammy for Record of the Year, that does not mean all of America knows it or cares about it. Ditto on Taylor Swift. And the Weeknd. And so many of the Spotify Top 50. And it isn't only old white people out of the loop, if you think every young person is deep into every genre and knows all the hits within it you're sorely mistaken.

But this truth does not fit into a narrative based on the past that is all about quantification.

Let me analogize it to film. If a movie wins the box office weekend, does that mean everybody has seen it? Has everybody seen "Wicked"? Absolutely not. This is not the seventies with "Jaws" and "Star Wars," when it was nearly impossible to find someone who hadn't seen both. Now you go to a party and people haven't seen "Squid Game," the first season, not the second. For a long time we partook of entertainment/art so we could converse with our brethren, but that ended about twenty years ago. We all live in a Tower of Babel society. That's one reason the Super Bowl viewership is so big, it's the one event we've all agreed to watch. It's almost a national holiday. If you don't go to a Super Bowl party, or haven't been invited to one or more, you feel friendless. The Super Bowl is a rallying cry for America. But not the Oscars or the Grammys or one other single event. Not even the World Series. Everything else is niche.

Let's go even further. It's not only entertainment that does not permeate society, but the truth. Irrelevant of whether you support Trump or not you need to read this article:

"Falsehoods Fuel the Right-Wing Crusade Against U.S.A.I.D. - As the Trump administration works to dismantle the aid agency, right-wing influencers have flooded the internet with falsehoods about its work."

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/business/usaid-conspiracy-theories-disinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wE4.K1Dm.zH8fDaQsoSR8&smid=url-share

If we all don't operate on the same information, if facts are fungible, what are the odds that we're all listening to the same music? ZERO!

But if this is true, the entire business needs to reset and refocus.

BUT IT ALREADY HAS! The story of the past five years is not the creation of superstars, but the rise of independents. But if a media outlet constantly writes about independents...it's wary of losing its audience. So, it publishes articles/focuses on that with the most bandwidth, but since those with the most bandwidth have a diminished audience, the impact and perception of the media outlets is declining. Social media is all about niches. It's cottage industry, the opposite of traditional media. As big as Mr. Beast is, not everybody watches his stuff. Ditto with the Paul brothers. There are social media stars, but most people follow/are served stuff with a much smaller audience...and if monetizing, these influencers can still make a ton of bread!

As for all the hubbub about Kendrick Lamar performing "Not Like Us," all the coded references to Drake... Fine if you're having fun, but to outsiders it seems petty, more like a Marvel movie than something truly important. I mean you expect the audience to be mega-impressed, assuming they caught it, which most did not, that a rapper is pissing on another rapper? This is a cartoon, not USAID, never mind tariffs, all the big issues in America today. This is the marginalization of music, not a great leap forward.

And when you tell people that it's like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, or Dylan at Newport...you're like the rock critics of yore, telling everybody their taste is better. Furthermore, the generation gap back in '64 was very different from today. Today's adults want to be like their kids, when back then just the opposite was true. As for Dylan at Newport... There were some who hated that he went electric, but people who were there say the boos were minimal. But don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Now the interpretation of Kendrick's performance on Sunday reminds me of today's metal. It's so referential, so far from the progenitors, Zeppelin and Sabbath, that it has to be explained to newbies, unless you're deep into the genre, you can't understand it on first listen.

So could you get Kendrick Lamar's performance on Sunday night on first listen?

It appears not.

After the fact, with a lengthy explanation maybe.

But this is not like hearing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on Ed Sullivan, making millions of converts, instantly.

The world is very confusing. And when you try to make it simple you are only muddying the message, obfuscating the truth.

But it's not only our entertainment that has become tribal, but our society itself. You're either with me or against me. And if you're not with me you're excoriated. And therefore, free-thinking declines, because many people don't want the blowback/abuse.

So, if you enjoyed Kendrick Lamar's performance on Sunday night, great! But if you think everybody who didn't was a loser the joke is on you. Because you don't understand today's landscape. And endless browbeating will not change minds, it will just cause anger to go underground, to be internalized, to come out at a later date, and you will be surprised.

That's America today.

Deny it all you want, but if you do, it's you who are falling behind, it's you who doesn't get it.


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