Kendrick is a “political” rapper who doesn’t actually express his politics

People tend to project revolutionary politics on to Kendrick, but it’s really not evident in his music. He has a general themes of black liberation, but that’s fairly standard rap shit and covers a wide spectrum of black political traditions. Even Jay Z’s brand of Black Capitalism fits within that context, but Jay at least has the courage to tell you what he believes. Nipsey was not craven and exploitve like Jay Z, but his version of black liberation was also rooted in a more organic, hyper localized version of black capitalism.

Kendrick never really espouses true revolutionary politics the way an act like Dead Prez, or even someone less overly militant like Mos Def did. Kendrick seems to play his beliefs rather close to the chest, although he did let us into the fact that he has some weirdo Hebrew Israelite leanings. Why, do audiences tend to paint him as some sort of wrap revolutionary?