Prayer

On “Pray,” Kendrick Lamar reflects over “the voices of art” and personifies a song by Michael Jackson and a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., respectively. In each of the first two verses, Lamar mentions two dates that relate to the lives of each man—The Jackson 5’s “ABC” released on February 24, 1970, and MLK delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.

The piano sample comes from a 1979 song called “Say A Prayer” by T-Fire.

Kendrick uses every verse to explore how the media is quick to dismiss an artist’s contributions to society due to their personal shortcomings—he specifically delves into Jackson’s pedophilia accusations and King’s marital infidelity. In the final verse, Kendrick establishes that artists bring meaning to the world regardless of their individual imperfections.

The song was recorded sometime in 2019. Leaked on August 18th, 2020, under the name “Prayer”, however it was only ever titled “Pray” and “Mr. Morale”. Ultimately scrapped due to being leaked along with “Gotta Love Me” and “Somebody.”. Also mistakenly thought to be an original version of “The Heart Part 5”.

Lyrics for the song were present on Tidal for “Mr. Morale” when the song first released before being changed. Zaytop claimed that this was meant to show up on the album as the title track but it was replaced with the version produced by Pharrell (https://soundcloud.com/infisrael/kendricklamar-pray).