i think we are talking about different poem's
there are 2 in the album. There is the one he tells tupac and the one about the butterfly. I'm talking about the poem that is told to tupac which sections of it are played throughout the album
Yeah, the 'I remember you was conflicted...' one, the first time you hear it is at the beginning of These Walls, before that you had Wesley's Theory, For Free?, King Kunta and Institutionalized, so you get
I remember you was conflicted
Misusing your influence
Sometimes I did the same
He's gained influence (power/money/fame) and wants to do something with it but drops King Kunta where he pretty much shits all over everyone anyway. He realises what he's done, that conflict arises and he starts looking at where he is (running the game...). You hear some more of it at the end of it
Abusing my power, full of resentment
Resentment that turned into a deep depression
Found myself screaming in a hotel room
These Walls details him using his power (over a woman?), u deals with the resentment and the depression that's forming. That hotel bit as well, you hear housekeeping knocking on the door during u lol. Some more gets added on at the end of Alright
I didn't wanna self destruct
The evils of Lucy was all around me
So I went running for answers
Alright is where he begins to self destruct, that resentment and depression is hitting that boiling point. For Sale? talks about the temptations of 'Lucy' and his soul.
Until I came home is the last line of the song, with the next song being Momma, which you can interpret as he ran home to momma after that period of temptation. Next time you hear more of it is in Hood Politics.
But that didn't stop survivors guilt
Going back and forth
Trying to convince my self the stripes I earned
Or maybe how A-1 my foundation was
But while my loved ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city
I was entering a new one
In Momma he talks about going back to the hood after he made it but nothing back home has changed. He spends Hood Politics talking about how his foundation is 'A-1', how ever since the beginning he's been working hard, didn't care about the politics of the rap game etc. He tries to convince himself he's done good but the proof is in what he comes back to. So he enters a new 'war'. You hear the rest of it in Mortal Man.
A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination
Made me wanna go back to the city and tell the homies what I learned
The word was respect
Just because you wore a different gang color than mine
Doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a black man
Forgetting all the pain and hurt we caused each other in these streets
If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us
But I don’t know, I’m no mortal man, maybe I’m just another nigga
Which pretty much just sums up the message of the rest of the songs. This is just one way of interpreting the album IMO. Each song is so packed and heavy that there's definitely more interpretation. By that last sentence, I just think it's also a way of tying the two poems together, by Kendrick entering the war, he's leaving his cocoon and telling people what he's learned.
