Who is Kendrick Lamar? After five plus years in the spotlight, after collaborating with everyone from Kanye West to Taylor Swift, after being crowned by every music critic imaginable (including yours truly) as the greatest rapper in the game, you\u2019d think we\u2019d have a clearer answer to that question. But outside of the most basic details \u2013 the upbringing in Compton, the early work with rappers on the rise like Jay Rock and The Game \u2013 we\u2019re still piecing together what exactly makes him tick. With DAMN.<\/i>, Lamar makes clear that we\u2019re in good company; he\u2019s looking for answers, too.<\/p>\n
At a surface level, DAMN.<\/i> tackles a familiar subject for newly crowned music superstars: how can I keep fame from changing me? This is most clearly articulated on \u201cYah,\u201d which finds Lamar admitting that, in the face of all his success, \u201cI got so many theories and suspicions \/ I’m diagnosed with real nigga conditions.\u201d Elsewhere, on \u201cElement,\u201d he seems to be trying to convince himself as much as the listener that \u201cI don\u2019t do it for the \u2018gram \/ I do it for Compton.\u201d His foundation, not his fame, is where he seeks strength.<\/p>\n
Constant throughout the album are references to a wealth that Lamar, raised in Section 8 housing, could only have imagined at an earlier age. But far from reveling in luxury, Kung Fu Kenny seems almost suspicious, noting in \u201cLoyalty\u201d that now he must sort through the motivations of any would-be hangers-on before trusting them. \u201cHumble,\u201d the album\u2019s hit single, is a reminder to himself where he started, with the chorus commanding him to stay humble no matter what further success comes.<\/p>\n
If he\u2019s having to be more discriminating about who he trusts now, the listener nevertheless reaps the benefits of Kendrick\u2019s famous new friends, with Rihanna ably sharing the mic on \u201cLoyalty\u201d and U2 coming along for the ride with a concluding verse about America\u2019s purpose on \u201cXXX.\u201d While far from the first time Lamar has featured other talent, these are certainly the biggest fish he\u2019s ever landed, and the results are as excellent as you\u2019d expect from such high wattage stars.<\/p>\n
As for the album\u2019s sound, listeners are treated to a cross between good kid, m.A.A.d. city<\/i>\u2019s deft rapping and To Pimp A Butterfly<\/i>\u2019s expert production, with what is unquestionably the most radio-friendly release of Lamar\u2019s career. Less expansive than Butterfly<\/i> but without the skits and sidetracks of m.A.A.d. city<\/i>, DAMN.<\/i> is the tightest album Lamar has put out yet. No time is wasted; no song is skippable.<\/p>\n
And as for the album\u2019s central question, the answer comes from its bookends. \u201cDNA\u201d is a proud anthem of self-expression, an angry declaration about what has made Lamar who he is today and a refusal to change for anyone. \u201cDuckworth\u201d adopts a different tone, wondering how different Lamar\u2019s life would have been if he and his family hadn\u2019t managed to dodge the perils of life on the street. Both songs, in entirely different ways, portray Kendrick Lamar as an artist who recognizes himself as blessed with both talent and luck, a voice and an opportunity, a responsibility and a risk.<\/p>\n
If it lacks the surprise of his debut or the prodigious force of its follow-up, DAMN.<\/i> is nevertheless leaps and bounds above most of the rap on the shelves today, an album that marshals Kendrick Lamar\u2019s talent for storytelling and the power of his pen for something memorable, powerful, and personal. The question he\u2019s answering may not be original, but the results? Damn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":33612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10257],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45433","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kendrick-lamar","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45433","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=45433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45433"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}