James Johnson

Mr. Maust

September 11, 2017

How Much a Dollar Cost?

   I decided to analyze a song for my rhetorical essay. In 2015, President Barack Obama shared his favorite song with Peoplemagazine. Artist, Kendrick Lamar, wrote an very poetic piece named “How Much a Dollar Cost” that derived from the incredible ,11 grammy nominated album, “To Pimp a Butterfly”. The Song “How Much a Dollar Cost” in a sense is a true story. I believe with the genre of musicians where he's at in his career he is trying to reach the younger generation and Christians with this piece. The main gist of this song is that rapper Kendrick Lamar is greeted by a homeless man asking for money, but due to his mindset he refuses to help, just to later find out he was actually speaking to God. Also a very key part of this song would be the question asked to the audience “How Much Does a Dollar Cost?”. In an article, rapzilla.com said,“It is a reminder to stop being selfish for a second and think in terms of WWJD”

He successfully uses rhetorical strategies such as his attitude, diction, and the use of an epistrophe effectively to really bring his listeners in. I feel as if he was very successful with this song in all aspects. He clearly got his message across which was honor and integrity is worth more than money. Some would say the there was nothing wrong with how Kendrick went about this situation which creates the argument of was he right to say no? I believe that it was morally wrong to refuse to help but he has a valid argument that he makes throughout the song speaking as himself.

*** There wasn't really a lot of logos displayed in the song (SEE MAUST)

Kendrick did an excellent job with the strategic use of pathos throughout the song. He makes this story incredibly easy to visualize through his choice of diction.[1]  Before anything was said, the beat set the tone of the song. It was a slow beat with a sad vibe to it due to the use of the brass, keyboard, and string (faintly) instruments. This beat could not have been any more perfect to enhance the delivery of the message.

The beat steers the audience to be in a more calm, philosophical mood. He uses anger multiple times in the song for example in the second verse Kendrick says “If I could throw a bat at him, it'd be aimin' at his neck”. He does a great job of showing the audience just how furious this homeless man is making him by continuing to beg for help. The choice of words used describes just how violent he'd be willing to get.

Kendrick intricately introduces[2]  the Christian audience by having the homeless man wisely pull out a bible verse in the heat of the argument between the two. Doing this, it showed pathos by presenting the religious side of the homeless man. But where Kendrick did his best work was at the ending where he had the homeless man reveals himself as God. Using Strategic strategy he had created this allusion through the whole story that this man was just another homeless person. Kendrick does an amazing job wrapping it all up into one with the last phase of the song said by God. He says, “I'll tell you just how much a dollar costThe price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss, I am God”

What made this song so successful was how

Use these based off of the thesis paragraph by paragraph
[3] 

Pathos - means to persuade an audience by appealing to their emotions.

   Beat = slow, query, sad

Ethos - means to convince an audience of the author’s credibility or character.

Logos - means to convince an audience by use of logic or reason.

Conclusion

AccountingQueen

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Status NEW Posted 09 Jan 2018 04:01 PM My Price 10.00

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