Talk:The Blacker the Berry (song)

Prose

• The single release date isn't in the article prose. Even if it's in the lead or infobox, those shouldn't substitute article information, but rather merely summarize it (or quickly provide basic facts, in regards to the infobox). This is key information to include in a complete article regarding the subject.
  • Furthermore, this would mean that the release date citation in the infobox would no longer be needed per MOS:CITELEAD
• I would argue that the song's chart performance on the UK singles chart, and the two other certifications, are worth mentioning in the lead.
• Any reason why there isn't a "Commercial performance" section that covers the song's commercial performance and certifications in the prose?
• None of the genres listed in the infobox are actually sourced in the article. The closest that there is to this is "The track is built on a boom bap beat", but that fails WP:EXPLICITGENRE. Furthermore, this claim is also unsourced - see sourcing section below for details.
• I would strongly recommend not having a section titled "Controversy" for reasons outlined in the WP:CSECTION essay. Especially when most of it is quotes... but more on that below.
• A lot of the wording choices in the article come off to me as MOS:EDITORIAL and I simply do not think it is encyclopedic. Phrases like "Being Lamar's first major statement since "i", a single released in late 2014, "The Blacker the Berry" is a departure from its "self-love-promoting" predecessor. Whereas "i" was sweet and naïve, "The Blacker the Berry" is discordant and fierce, being a racially-charged song.", "His urgent rapping demonstrates discipline and control, even as an irregular cadence hits and runs over beat", "while bluntly tackling hatred and racism", pretty much the entirety of the audio sample caption, and "'The Blacker the Berry' received rave reviews from music journalists" feel ripped out of a news article rather than an encyclopedic overview.
• The entire article WP:OVERQUOTEs and a large chunk of it should be paraphrased. Earwig shows a 68.2%, and it doesn't seem to be false positives either. Other sources show slightly alarming scores related to the article, as well (ranging from 40% to 25.9%). While this isn't saying that the article hosts copyright violations (which I don't think it does), it demonstrates that there is a serious lack of original writing present within the article. And that's a problem.
• Not to use this as a source or anything (as it's WP:USERG, just using it as an example), but if Setlist.FM is to be believed, the song was performed far more times than once. So why is the section just called "live performance"? Did any other performances of the song not gather media attention? Was it not performed during any of Lamar's future tours?
• Per WP:SINGLETRACKLIST, the track list section should not be in the article.
• The article needs a personnel section.

Media

• There are only two media files present within the article: the cover art, and the audio sample.
  • Cover is obviously justified.
  • The audio sample I'm a bit iffy on. Was this specific part of the song subject to critical commentary per WP:NFCC?

Sourcing

• As stated earlier, none of the infobox genres are sourced in the article, or even mentioned.
  • "The track is built on a boom bap beat while providing subversive musical styles reminiscent of Parliament-Funkadelic." This entire phrase is not verified. Out of the two sources here, while AllMusic does mention Parliament-Funkadelic, the Pitchfork one does not. Neither mention boom bap.
• Elaborating further on the infobox, almost all of the songwriters, producers, and record labels in the infobox are unsourced in the actual article body.
• For the sake of the required spotcheck, I looked at references 2, 15, and 18. Unfortunately, this spot check does not matter and two thirds of it failed.

Final comments

The writing of the article as it stands right now, combined with the sourcing issues, doesn't exactly make me comfortable with this article when put against the good article criteria. In particular, the large amount of EDITORIAL prose and OVERQUOTE-ing, would be an issue that requires effort and rewriting outside the scope of a GAN review. At least, not one that would be avoiding a WP:FIXLOOP. Unfortunately, per quickfail criteria #1, I will be failing this article as it stands now. Let me know on my talk page if you have any further questions regarding this review. λ NegativeMP1 23:08, 8 July 2025 (UTC)