Its Bigger Than Black and White Meaning

2020 protest song by Lil Baby

“The Bigger Pic”
Single by Lil Infant
from the anthology My Plough (Deluxe)
Released	June 12, 2020 (2020-06-12)
Recorded	2020
Genre	Political hip hop trap[1]
Length	4:thirteen
Label	Quality Control Universal
Songwriter(s)	Dominique Jones Rai’Shaun Williams Noah Pettigrew
Producer(southward)	Section 8 Noah
Lil Baby singles chronology
“Lawmaking of tha Streets” (2020) “The Bigger Picture” (2020) “One Shot” (2020)
Music video
“The Bigger Picture” on YouTube

“The Bigger Pic” is a protestation song past American rapper Lil Infant. Information technology was released on June 12, 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. In the vocal, Lil Baby shows solidarity with the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests calling for justice against constabulary brutality in the Us and systemic racism. Proceeds from “The Bigger Picture” do good The National Association of Blackness Journalists, Breonna Taylor’s attorney, The Bond Project, and Black Lives Thing.

It is Lil Baby’due south highest-charting song as a lead artist on the
Billboard
Hot 100, debuting and peaking at number iii, behind “Trollz” by 6ix9ine & Nicki Minaj and “Rockstar” past DaBaby & Roddy Ricch.^[two]
It was later added to the deluxe edition of his 2d studio album
My Plough.^[3]
The vocal received two nominations at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards: Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Vocal.^[4]

Groundwork

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Prior to the song’due south release, Lil Babe was seen marching downwardly Mitchell Street in his hometown Atlanta, during the George Floyd protests in Georgia. He was accompanied past the city’due south Councilman Antonio Brown.^[5]

Composition and lyrics

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The vocal was written past Lil Baby, alongside its producers, Section 8, (who also produced Lil Baby’s “Nosotros Paid”) and Noah Pettigrew. It begins with morose keys, a soundbite taken from the news detailing the George Floyd protest in Minneapolis, and chants from Black Lives Affair protesters,^[v]
chanting “I can’t breathe”.^[6]
Lil Baby and so starts rapping, venting over a hard, clicking drum clap and a dramatic^[7]
and “haunting” pianoforte riff.^[viii]
Riley Runnels of
Newspaper
noted “The chorus dictates what protestors are fighting for is ‘bigger than Black and White’. It’s deep-rooted, it’s systemic and information technology’s going to require a lot of time to change”. However, Lil Infant continues with optimism, rapping “But we gotta first somewhere”.^[six]
With the line, “Corrupted constabulary been the problem where I’g from, but I’d be lying if I said information technology was all of them”, Lil Infant references the heated sentiment that all police officers are racist oppressors (“All Cops Are Bad” or A.C.A.B.).^[nine]

Charles Holmes of
Rolling Rock
summarized the song and its concept:

“Baby raps similar a torrent, sprinting across the beat every bit he tries to come to grips with the weeks-long protests calling for justice later on the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and endless others. In verse, he’southward both angry and confused — ‘I notice it crazy the police will shoot yous and know that y’all dead but nevertheless tell yous to freeze’ — trying to make sense of what millions of Americans are struggling to come to grips with. But of all the feelings Lil Baby exorcises on the track, it’s trepidation and fear that colors ‘The Bigger Pic‘“.^[v]

Disquisitional reception

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“The Bigger Picture” received critical acclaim. Riley Wallace of
HipHopDX
called the song and video “powerful” and appraised it equally “a protestation anthem that manages to strike even more than poignantly by not inherently branding itself as such”. Riley concluded that Lil Baby seamlessly articulates “the frustration, confusion, and innate phone call to stand upward for something much bigger than himself”.^[9]
Miki Hellerbach of
Euphoria
magazine opined that “while Kendrick Lamar’due south vocalisation was the sound of the Mike Brownish/Eric Garner/Freddie Gray protests with his song ‘Alright’, information technology seems clear why Lil Baby is the sound of now”. Hellerbach stated Lil Baby seems to center and ignite the listener simultaneously, and “in the claw, he raps poignantly through his vulnerability and motivation”: “It’s a problem with the whole fashion of life/ Information technology tin can’t modify overnight, but nosotros gotta start some where/ Might also gone ‘head start here”.^[10]

In a highly positive review, Charles Holmes of
Rolling Rock
said “The Bigger Picture show” “isn’t a protestation vocal, it’s a song shaped past protestation”, praising Lil Baby’s storytelling skills: “Baby’s main talent has ever been his abstention of obfuscation in favor of a straight accost”.^[5]
Tom Breihan of
Stereogum
deemed it “a stirring and ultimately optimistic song”, and said he “honestly found information technology pretty moving”.^[7]
Billboard
‘s Jason Lipshutz deemed it “the biggest modern protest song”.^[11]

Comprehend art

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The song’s cover art is a picture taken at a George Floyd protest in Atlanta on June 8, 2020, where Lil Baby led a crowd on a bicycle. The photo was taken by lensman Matthew Geovany
^[12]

Commercial performance

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On its showtime day of release, “The Bigger Movie” reached number-i on both the US and global Apple Music charts, while reaching number three on US Spotify.^[xiii]
“The Bigger Picture” debuted at number 3 on the US
Billboard
Hot 100, becoming Lil Baby’southward highest-charting vocal as a lead artist, surpassing “Drip Too Difficult”, which peaked at number 4 in 2018.^[2]

Music video

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The video was released on the aforementioned day every bit the vocal and takes place at the Black Lives Matter protest in Lil Infant’s hometown of Atlanta. The video shows Lil Infant standing among other protesters,^[fourteen]
raising his manus in solidarity and wearing a Black Lives Thing t-shirt.^[8]
It besides features footage of the nationwide protests from the previous two weeks that followed the murder of George Floyd, an African American human murdered by a police officer.^[viii]

Charts

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Certifications

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See too

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• “Otherside of America”, a song by Meek Mill, also released in June 2020, and associated with Black Lives Matter and George Floyd

References

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