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Black Israelite sects emerged out of the Great Migration of the early twentieth century, when large numbers of African Americans emigrated from the southern United States to the American west and northeast. Since at least the eighteenth century, African slaves in America had identified with the Israelities in the Exodus narrative. Since at least the eighteenth century, African slaves in America had identified with the Israelities in the Exodus narrative.īut this loose connection of African American religious groups has a long history in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified some of these churches-like the Black Hebrew Israelites in Baltimore-as hate groups for their ardent black nationalism and deep, sometimes violent, antipathy towards white people. But on the street corners of many American cites, these groups are a familiar fixture, their theatrical preaching a combustive mix of spontaneous jeremiads and confrontational engagement with passersby. Indeed, the question of authenticity is at the heart of one of the album’s most controversial utterances, two lines from the song “YAH,” in which Lamar raps, “I’m a Israelite, don’t call me black no mo’ / That word is only a color, it ain’t facts no mo’.” At the album’s release, this assertion was a source of uproar and confusion, since it appeared to be an endorsement of Black Israelism, or Black Judaism, a divisive and peripheral form of African American religion defined by its insistence that African peoples are literal descendants of Israelites.įor some listeners, Lamar’s verse was their first introduction to Black Israelites. The jury praised the album’s “vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism,” a curious endorsement given how frequently Lamar inhabits other characters and narrative personae in his songs. became the first hip-hop album to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.