Scene 1: In a pandemic-stricken America, society grapples with anxiety, loss, trauma, and isolation. What kind of music do people need during this time? Perhaps music that does more than express outrage—songs that offer healing, comfort, and warmth. Music is the language of emotion. Amid a global crisis like the pandemic, many find strength and a way to connect through music.

Scene 2: Today, Black culture is no longer confined to the periphery of American society—it now sets the trends. Hip hop and R&B artists with both personality and talent in particular have produced stellar work that displays emotional depth and continue to do so. Their music resonates with audiences from all different backgrounds, who express solidarity.

Scene 3: The Super Bowl is hailed as the world’s greatest sporting event. While it has traditionally symbolized a consumer market centered around the white middle class, recent years have told a different story. With hip hop and R&B artists headlining Super Bowl halftime shows, the event now champions multiculturalism and inclusivity. Heightened awareness of social justice following the Black Lives Matter movement likely played a part in this shift.

Enter “luther,” a duet by Kendrick Lamar and SZA. As of the “Billboard” Hot 100 dated May 24, the song has dominated the chart for 13 consecutive weeks, placing it in the top 15 of the longest-charting chart-toppers of all time. It also held the top of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts for an astounding 23 weeks. Equally phenomenal are its airplay and streaming numbers. The red-hot response to “luther” is undoubtedly shaped by the convergence of the three scenes we witnessed play out.

Kendrick’s music has always had a way of expressing the social wounds of our time and examining inner pain with unflinching honesty. From time to time, though, he’ll put out a song that pierces the heart with a gentle whisper. “luther” is one such song. As the softest track off Kendrick’s sixth studio album, “GNX,” it is, on the surface, a love song, expressing unwavering commitment and a willingness to do anything for the one you love. Beneath that smooth surface, however, lies something open to many different interpretations. For one thing, Kendrick seems to be analyzing both the possibilities and the limitations of finding love in the world we currently inhabit.

The song samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s own duet “If This World Were Mine” (1982), but not merely for the sound. Sampling, as a technique, also conveys a sense of memory. In other words, it transcends merely borrowing sound, transplanting the atmospheric and emotional tone of the era to which the older song belongs. Kendrick and SZA take turns riffing on the line Vandross sings (“If this world were mine”), leading us to perceive love as not just an emotion but a memory and a conviction. Moreover, they frame love as an act of power—the power to picture a different world and reshape it. Each time the phrase “if this world was mine” is repeated, it grows heavier with increased gravity.

Take, for example, the lines, “If this world was mine, I’d take your enemies in front of God / Introduce ’em to that light, hit them strictly with that fire.” Here, the imagery boldly conflates divine judgment with interpersonal love, sanctifying love while wielding it as a protective weapon. In “luther,” Kendrick embraces utopian visions, but his tone is laced with resignation and pessimism about the reality he finds himself in. That is, “this world”—which, if it were his, he’d do absolutely anything for the one he loves—can be read as a paradoxical paradigm that reflects a repressive reality. In doing so, he underscores how broken the world he seeks to transform truly is—fractured by (race, gender, class, and political) conflict.

And this is precisely what Kendrick does best: He pieces together complex emotions and uses them as a lens to examine both reality and what lies beyond it. While Vandross’s song was seen from an apolitical lens within the Black community in the 1980s, Kendrick repurposes it to create a politically charged emotional space. Within that space, he offers solace and emotional restoration—not through an explosive political stance or a diss track, but through whispered words of love.

Meanwhile, SZA responds to Kendrick’s declaration of love with a mixture of tenderness and subtle distrust. Unlike Kendrick’s verses, SZA looks at the systemic pain she’s had to endure because the world isn’t hers. It’s hard to describe exactly what makes SZA’s voice so special. It wanders, melancholy and lonely, like a solitary star, but still in call and response to Kendrick’s. What other combination of hip hop and R&B artists but these two could deliver such flawless vocal performances while tackling profound subject matter at the same time?

What really propelled “luther” into the spotlight was the Super Bowl halftime show. Though Kendrick is often seen as a symbol of alternative, noncommercial hip hop, this song was unveiled on the most American, most commercial stage out there. Using it as his platform, Kendrick reached out to the people of the world by conjuring up incredibly tender, honest emotions to speak of love.

The biggest reason “luther” is so popular might simply be that it’s an excellent song, plus Kendrick’s unusual choice to unleash a poetic R&B song after his intense beef with Drake turned heads, too. Still, the absolutely phenomenal response can’t be fully explained by the quality of the music or the memorable melody alone—it must be understood in the context of the structural realities of present-day American society and how it's entwined with the emotional desires of the general public. Kendrick has always been ahead of his time, examining mechanisms of oppression and incisively positioning personal pain within larger societal structures, and in “luther,” his knack for this approach shines once again. Most importantly, Kendrick does not simply say, “I love you.” Instead, he says, one way or another, he’s going to find a way to love, even in a world where love is impossible. And he seems to be posing a question to us as well: If this world were yours, what would you change for the one you love?