Ever since Kendrick Lamar dropped his surprise album GNX on Friday, it’s all any rap fan can talk about online. He gave them more food for thought with the video for “Squabble Up,” the album standout which he previously teased in the “Not Like Us” video five months ago. Now, fans can’t stop dissecting the pop culture references sprinkled throughout the video. While we may not be able to fully explain some of them because you just had to be there — who really knows why all our aunties had those dang panther statues in the living room — here is a breakdown of the references to Black film, music, and California in the “Squabble Up” video.
The Freeway Exit Sign
The video opens with a reproduction of an exit sign from the 105 Freeway that cuts through South Los Angeles. Specifically, the three eastbound exits listed — Wilmington, Central, and Long Beach Blvd. — are the ones pertaining specifically to Compton.
Scrapers And African-American Flags
The next big cultural reference is to scraper bikes, a fixture of Oakland, California, which grew out of lowrider car culture. In 2006, Tyrone “Baybe Champ” Stevenson Jr., aka Scraper Bike King, began modifying bicycles with scrap, cardboard, tinfoil, and paint in an effort to create a new hobby to keep youth out of trouble. Dancers throughout this scene “go dumb,” an expression of the hyphy culture that grew out of the Bay Area in the early 2000s.
The African-American Flag was created by David Hammons in 1990, combining the colors of the Pan-African Flag, black, green, and red, with the flag of the United States to represent African diaspora identity in the US. Historically, enslaved Africans were banned from learning about their home cultures; as a result, the Black American identity has become a way for their descendants to create a culture of their own.
Ice-T’s Power Album Cover
That buxom young lady holding the shotgun in a revealing swimsuit is a reference to the back cover of Ice-T’s 1988 album Power — an album considered pivotal in the rise of both LA’s rap scene and gangsta rap overall. Ice’s then-girlfriend Darlene Ortiz posed on the cover, while the album, like GNX, found Ice taking on rap’s heartthrob LL Cool J — sound familiar?
Soul Train Scramble Board
This one’s a super deep cut. The dance variety show Soul Train — a fixture in certain households in the ’80s and ’90s — included a recurring segment in which two dancers would try to solve a word scramble forming the name of that week’s musical guest or another notable Black figure.
The Big Wheel
Right around the two-minute mark, you might notice a small child on a Big Wheel tricycle in the background. This is a reference to the film Menace II Society. Spoiler alert for a 30-year movie: It doesn’t end well for Caine — or the kid on the Big Wheel.
Isaac Hayes’ Black Moses Album Cover
Near the end of the video, we see a reproduction of the cover of Isaac Hayes’ fifth studio album, which included his interpretations of “Never Can Say Goodbye,” and “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” and went No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1972. Behind him, we see a box of Black Jesus prints, which ought to speak for themselves.
The Roots’ “The Next Movement”
This one’s admittedly a bit shaky, but as one fan on Twitter pointed out, the clip bears a striking resemblance to the one for The Roots’ 1999 Things Fall Apart single, “The Next Movement.” Like GNX, that album also saw its principles taking steps in bringing music previously only acknowledged as underground to mainstream consciousness, while making subtle references to progressive social movements.
Watch Kendrick Lamar’s “Squabble Up” video above.
