Alright

"Alright" is a song by American rapper Kendrick Lamar featured on the artist's third studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). The song expresses ideas of hope amid personal struggles and features uncredited vocals in its chorus from co-producer Pharrell Williams. "Alright" was released to radio stations as the album's fourth single on June 30, 2015. Many music publications considered it among the best songs and videos of the year. "Alright" received four nominations at the 58th Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Music Video, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song, winning the latter two. It was also nominated for a MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year. The song was associated with the Black Lives Matter movement after several youth-led protests were heard chanting the chorus. Publications such as Rolling Stone, People, and Complex noted the song's importance in the protests calling "Alright" the "unifying soundtrack" of the movement. In 2019, it was named the best song of the 2010s by Pitchfork. Lamar, alongside notable artists Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem & more, performed “Alright” at the Super Bowl LVI halftime show on February 13, 2022. Inspiration and structure In an interview with MTV News, Lamar stated that he found inspiration for "Alright" while visiting South Africa and witnessing problems that locals faced: "their struggle was ten times harder." The track opens with lines from Alice Walker's The Color Purple, "Alls my life, I had to fight". In "Alright", Lamar introduces a character named Lucy, who plays an essential role throughout the album. In the track's lyrics, as Lamar gets bigger, so does Lucy: "ain't a profit big enough to feed you". At the end of the track, Lamar discusses suicidal thoughts once in a hotel room "I didn't wanna self-destruct... The evils of Lucy was all around me." Musically, the track features marching band propulsion and a jazz band's breezy reeds. For his sole production credit, Pharrell Williams, who made the track with Digi+Phonics' member Soundwave, sings the hook. Critical reception "Alright" received widespread critical acclaim from music critics. Ranked number one on Pitchforks "The 100 Best Tracks of 2015" and "The 200 Best Songs of the 2010s", an editor praised the chorus "We gon be alright," and described it as "an ebulliently simple five-syllable refrain, a future-tense assertion of delivery to a better, more peaceful place.