I take Kendrick’s early music as insights into his experience growing up as a Black American in LA, the record industry, and the social issues of that time period. His later music being his more personal opinions that I agree / disagree with to different extents.

I find it useful to see almost every issue he talks about as a direct result of settler colonialism, and see how they relate to other ongoing settler projects in the world today, instead of demanding an artist who typically speaks from positions of authority and experience suddenly becomes outspoken on Palestine.

i think the referenced track is the worst of it: telling black dudes they can’t go to atlanta because they’re “colonizers” is pretty gross,

This is an extremely uncharitable reading of those lyrics.