Sonic Winter

4y

it beats Damn, people are gonna have a hard time ranking the top three tho it's between GKMC TPAB and MM/TBS

Faith

4y

the great divine need to be tied to chair while this plays in a loop for 48 hours

HoneyBunny

4y

christ listen to more music

GEENO

4y

This Kendrick yeezus ive never heard a song like that by him ever

BIG STEPPER BRODIE

4y

Been a while since music made me feel like this bruh

BIG STEPPER BRODIE

4y

Been a while since music made me feel like this bruh

HoneyBunny

4y

so many pseudo-intelluctuals itt

Kako

4y

I pray to God you actually pray when somebody dies
Thoughts and prayers, way better off timelines

Broo these two bars right here are so deep to me and hit so hard

Ryuka

4y

So what's the consensus

I hope it's not a jazz album ffs

BrunsonEggNCheese

4y

its all duke ellington/ john coltrane type beats

HoneyBunny

4y

so many pseudo-intelluctuals itt

vagabonds

4y

they right

HoneyBunny

4y

christ listen to more music

fun guy

4y

In 2015, my music taste was rather unsavory–my palate was attuned to formulaic pop hits on the radio with a slight predilection for alternative rock. My music taste reflected my \sanitary upbringing and general my world view; I grew up in a well-off suburb of Boston, isolated from poverty, hardship, and social decay. While I would not have been considered naive, I had nevertheless unconsciously developed a view of America as a forward-progressing nation. America, I believed, was built on riches of stolen land and slavery, and after centuries of active resistance and moral courage, the nation fought a civil war and engaged in mass protests to bring its black underclass to a position of equality. I was sympathetic to the view that in 2015 Americans had ushered in an era of post-racialism by electing a black president, righting the wrongs of their ancestors. Race no longer mattered; if you were not successful in this nation, it must be a result of laziness or moral depravity.

This facile and somewhat ahistorical worldview was reflected in my narrow music taste, but most notably in my dislike for the music of the underclass–black or white–in hip-hop. My exposure to hip-hop music was limited, consisting of the few rap songs that charted each year: old Eminem songs, and my friends’ predominantly rap playlists. From my view, hip-hop indulged in hedonistic tendencies, glorifying d****, money, women, violence, and materialism. Gun toting and chain-donning rappers could not add insights into human nature, recount any experience pertinent to my life, and as a result could not create quality music. My entire perception of hip-hop and America was fundamentally altered when I was introduced to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, an album which, in vinyl form, now hangs above my bed, as a tribute to its political message, lyrical dexterity, and its role in changing in my politics, perception, and understanding of black culture.

At a glance, To Pimp A Butterfly is a dense, complex, jazz-infused hip-hop album which features long form poetry, political messaging, macho-boasting, and complex metaphors. When I listened to the album, I was acutely aware that I was listening to the work of a true artist, with much of the album going over my head. Lamar’s hard-work and dedication was recognized at the 2015 Grammy Awards, where he was was nominated for eleven categories, one short of Michael Jackson’s all time high of twelve, and more recently when he won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in music. To Pimp A Butterfly is, at its core, a story detailing Lamar’s rise through the music industry from a talented black teenager in Compton to worldwide rap star, and how his outlook on life was upended after visiting South Africa and engaging with his ancestry. Lamar recounted: “I’m not on the inside looking out. I’m in the dead f***ing center, looking around… I’m not the next pop star. I’m not the next socially aware rapper. I am a human motherfucking being over dope-ass instrumentation” (Nielsen 16). The album is brutally honest, as it deals with his depression and insecurities, lusts and youthful urges, and the layers of institutionalism which trap black youth, both psychologically and structurally.

The first track, “Wesley’s Theory” introduces characters played by Kendrick Lamar in different voices which feature recurrently throughout the album. A youthful Lamar, born in poverty and gang violence, recounts on what he wants to do as soon as he makes it in the rap industry, or “get signed”
When I get signed homie I’ma buy a strap
Straight from the CIA, sit it on my lap
Take a few M16s to the hood
Pass ‘em all out on the block, what’s good? (Lamar, “Wesley’s Theory”)

Lamar’s impulse to burn all his money on guns, builds off the stereotype of rappers deeply ingrained in his mind. He does, however, remind the listener of CIA’s involvement in the crack epidemic, infusing guns into urban communities and impressing this stereotype into the minds of young black men (Nielsen 79). The character of Uncle Sam, which later in the album is known as Lucy/Lucifer as an allusion to the devil, entices Lamar to indulge in materialism:

What you want you? A house or a car?
Forty acres and a mule, a piano, a guitar?. . .
So you better cop everything two times
Two coupes, two chains, two c-notes (Lamar, “For Free?”)
The verse begins with Uncle Sam’s traditional temptations into material culture, but continues by comparing this with “forty acres

Lamar then hypothesizes that if he were president the first thing he would do is “pay his mama’s rent” and “bulletproof his Chevy doors.” He is fundamentally unequipped to deal with with a world of luxury and stability, and stardom cannot erode the years of psychological scarring of life on the streets. His friends, whom Lamar brings to the BET awards, do not fare any better. Surroundeding by the extravagant wealth of “private jets and passport, presidential glass floor,” his friends think about stealing jewelry, as their hustler impulses are activated. Growing up poor, the obscene level of wealth deeply bothers Lamar and is friends who are “looking at artistses like they’re harvestses.” (Lamar, “Institutionalized”) Lamar presumably pronounces artist and harvest incorrectly to allude to Gollum’s manner of speaking in Lord of the Rings, adding the additional “es.” Gollum’s sole purpose is to capture the ring and pursue power, thematically equivalent to Lamar and his drive for wealth, which he admits eats at his soul.
While Lamar’s album is politically charged and thematically dense, he does not refrain from the macho-boasting central to the roots of hip-hop built in competitive battle rap. In the track “King Kunta,” Lamar declares himself king of the rap game and in “Hood Politics” he revisits his time as a gang member, proving that he can accomplish anything he wants. Even “King Kunta,” an upbeat, funky sounding track more suitable to mass consumption, has a layered political message. In the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Kunta Kinte was a runaway slave whose foot was cut off for leaving the plantation. Lamar raps
B**** where you when I was walking?
Now I run the game got the whole world talkin’, King Kunta
Everybody wanna cut the legs off him, Kunta
Black man taking no losses. (Lamar, “King Kunta”)
Lamar creates the conflict between “king” and “slave” which both describe his position in American society. He declares himself the “king” of the rap game, but is still oppressed like a “slave.”
The album is entrenched in black vernacular, initially alien to my me, with references to words I didn’t know and a slew of what I perceived as grammatical errors. Many of the tendencies of generally black (but there is a lot of overlap) lower class English are catalogued in Eminem’s discography:
Dropped s “Everybody want to run”…
“They” for “their”; for example: “they kids”. . .
“Ain’t” used for “didn’t”; for example: “I ain’t have to graduate”. . .
Double-negatives with verbs; for example: “nobody couldn’t see.” (Flynn 73)

When I first began listening to hip-hop, I found these grammatically incorrect uses of language to be jarring and cheapening the quality of music.

Pre-To Pimp A Butterfly, I viewed hip-hop as a monolithic entity; I could barely note the content distinction between Kendrick Lamar and Eminem, Gangsta Rap and Conscious Rap, or East Coast and West Coast styles. However, exposure to such a critically acclaimed, sonically beautiful, and politically charged album shattered my preconceptions. As I gained interest in hip-hop I noticed diversity within the genre that had eluded me initially. My reaction to hip-hop can be generalized to life. Nothing is monolithic, the subtleties that exist are masked by ignorance. Often, lack of exposure to a group of people or set of traditions can cause people to decry a group as a monolithic, rather than seeing each person as an individual. The most compelling feature of Kendrick Lamar is that he does not cater to the interests of the industry: he does not glorify sex, d****, and money. Instead he raps honestly about his impulses, describing how certain substances and his environment have affected his world view. To Pimp A Butterfly directly addressed my own reservations about hip-hop’s materialistic culture, with the character of Uncle Sam. Lamar’s journey from an institutionalized Compton rapper to an enlightened conscious storyteller mirrored my own; my upbringing precluded me from appreciating and respecting hip-hop as music. To look at the culture of the underclass as a reflection of moral depravity was ignorant at best and racist at worst; it is a reflection of material depravity, a point many people on the right side of the political spectrum still fail to understand. DAMN., Lamar’s successive album directly addresses this belief that culture is the source of black poverty, quoting a Fox “News” reporter: “This is why I say that hip hop has done more damage . tTo young African Americans than racism in recent years” (Lamar, “DNA”), a point which infuriates Lamar. It was only through long-form album length musical stories that I understood the layers which institutionalized individuals into certain patterns of behavior, and could understand black culture from a different vantage point.

WESLEYS THEORY

4y

As I said I see why people would be turned off by this album but this album honestly spoke to me in a way albums haven’t in awhile. I really felt this s*** deeply. Such a vulnerable body of work. I’m honestly blown away taking it all in tbh. We really weren’t really ready for this.

gnarlynasty

4y

Ok,Cardi B’s debut spoke to a lot of people

splice

4y

WLR avi so ur gonna love N95