The author of the upcoming book Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar, Lewis interviewed Lamar after the release of To Pimp a Butterfly and learned the artist was inspired to write "Alright" by a trip to South Africa - specifically the cell on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. "Maybe it's the ancestors who never received the justice they deserved," says Miles Marshall Lewis. The dah dah dahs that make up those chords are Williams' own disembodied voice, running constantly through the song. One of the bystanders also asked for this information.
People started gathering at the scene, holding up their phones to record.Īccording to the incident report, officers asked the 14-year-old for his mother's name and address, which he gave to them. "I'm standing on the steps," she says, "and all of a sudden, the crowd went from of folks saying goodbye to, 'Oh, something's happening.' " It had been less than a year since police shot and killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old who was playing with an Airsoft gun outside a rec center, in the very same city. Middleton could make out that something was going on. In surveillance and body cam tape released by the Greater Cleveland Authority Regional Transit Police, you can see the cop take the kid off the bus and handcuff him inside a sheltered bus stop. Inside, a police officer was detaining a black 14-year-old suspected of drinking alcohol. At the same time people were saying their goodbyes with hugs and kisses, a bus was coming across campus.
The conference ended on a Sunday afternoon.