After boldly announcing his arrival with the brilliant, autobiographical good kid, m.A.A.d. city<\/i>, Kendrick Lamar would have been forgiven a sophomore slump. No artist strikes gold every time in the studio, and if Lamar had just tossed out some more scattershot songs about growing up in Compton, nobody would have batted an eye.<\/p>\n
Instead he delivered arguably the album of the decade.<\/p>\n
To Pimp A Butterfly<\/i> is a dense, complex, sprawling journey through the black experience in America, at times a celebration but more often a raised fist of barely stifled rage. If good kid, m.A.A.d. city <\/i>established Lamar\u2019s bona fides as a rap star, To Pimp a Butterfly <\/i>cements those credentials and elevates him to the higher plane of a Bob Dylan or a Nina Simone \u2013 not just a star, but an Important Artist.<\/p>\n
Beginning with \u201cWesley\u2019s Theory,\u201d Lamar navigates the subject of black economic oppression, putting a voice to an America that has regretfully told him \u201cWe should never gave \/ we should never gave \/ Niggas money. Go back home.\u201d \u201cFor Free?\u201d continues the argument, with Lamar\u2019s rapid-fire delivery of all the ways that black men and women have enriched their nation over the years, only to receive little in return: \u201cI need forty acres and a mule \/ not a forty ounce and a pit bull.\u201d<\/p>\n
But lest you get the idea that this album is just a list of grievances from a rich, famous artist, Lamar addresses his own community too in songs like \u201cHood Politics\u201d and \u201cComplexion (A Zulu Love).\u201d These songs, borrowing an idea from his previous album, serve as a plea to the black community to put petty grievances aside in the name of progress, to stop the civil wars that only further black oppression and reach for something higher. This is most sharply seen in \u201ci,\u201d the album\u2019s first single, which begins as a raucous, live party track and ends with a speech about brotherhood when the performance is interrupted by arguments in the crowd.<\/p>\n
For all his ire at others, Lamar\u2019s aim is arguably sharpest when he targets his own personal complicity in the social ills keeping the black community uninspired. On \u201cThe Blacker the Berry,\u201d the album\u2019s best song, he ends his message of black empowerment with this question and accusation: \u201cSo why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? \/ When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? \/ Hypocrite!\u201d It is this willingness to self-incriminate that keeps Lamar from ever becoming a mere scold\u2014his is a prophetic voice of protest, not a pointed finger.<\/p>\n
Nothing is simple about To Pimp A Butterfly<\/i>, and that is reflected in the music, which takes a leap forward in complexity and production after the easy flows of good kid, m.A.A.d. city<\/i>. Beats and rhymes are laid over jazz and funk throughout the album, creating a sound picture that is simultaneously chaotic and melodious\u2014much like the message the album delivers.<\/p>\n
To Pimp A Butterfly<\/i> is the kind of album you can listen to a dozen times and still feel like you\u2019re only scratching the surface. The music, the rhythm, the lyrics \u2013 everything is as complex, varied, and powerful as the story they tell when woven together. Few albums are this ambitious, and few artists can match that ambition with this level of skill.<\/p>\n
When \u201cMortal Man,\u201d the album closer, ends with a mock conversation between Lamar and Tupac Shakur (the result of some clever studio tinkering), it almost feels like a blessing from rap\u2019s greatest martyr to its new king.\u00a0 From the streets of Compton to the gates of power, Kendrick Lamar has something to say \u2013 and on To Pimp A Butterfly<\/i>, he holds nothing back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":33611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10257],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-45432","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kendrick-lamar","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45432"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}