To Pimp A Butterfly

If there's any textbook example of outdoing oneself, sure as hell Kendrick Lamar is doing it. GKMC was already an contender to be a pivotal rap album in the history of rap music, and then he drops this bomb. 2PAB is everything GKMC was, and then some. The lyrics are pure dope and are chock-full of references, innuendos and double meanings (I'm trying to understand them one by one through Rapgenius). The production is tight and loose at the same time: you have your wiggly radio-friendly beat-fests, soul, funk, g-funk, jazz, spoken word, a Capella which flows silky smooth throughout the LP. To top it all, you have this 27 year old kid effortlessly spitting it out about racism, consumerism, institutionalism, God and the bible, self-love, depreciation, idealism and a bunch of other topics. And the outro of the last track is downright chilling. When the album was over, my mind was blown from all that awesomeness. As a listener, sometimes it becomes a sensory overload to process all of it at the crazy pace Lamar often spat it out in the album. Yet whenever I listen to it, it feels fresh and new. I thought nobody could do all that. This kid, this damn kid my age did. Favorite tracks: Wesley's Theory For Free? King Kunta Hood Politics How Much a Dollar Cost The Blacker the Berry You Ain't Gonna Lie Heck the whole album is a must listen.

Just perfection.

This album along with Lupe Fiasco's Tetsuo and Youth are the best albums that have released in 2015 till now. The best thing about the genre is how it heavily incorporates jazz.

This will go down as classic. Eazy.

best rap music cd of 2015

a classic. must buy for your hip hop collection

Don't expect a lot of instantly likable material: it will grow on you with time. He's somehow managed to be a socially conscious gangster

#1 No doubt.

Par ces temps absurdes où la critique dispose de quelques heures pour se prononcer sur des albums publiés à l'improviste et diffusés à une vitesse supersonique, tous les chroniqueurs de la planète ont levé le pouce en un rien de temps : Kendrick Lamar est bien le nouveau génie que le rap attendait ! Trois ans après la révélation de Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, fascinant autoportrait d'un gamin élevé dans le brasier du Los Angeles des gangs, l'audace, la liberté et la véhémence de son deuxième album forcent le respect. L'unanimité a quand même de quoi surprendre : To pimp a butterfly (1) n'est ni un disque aimable, ni un disque facile. Comme le Black Messiah de D'Angelo, il est porté par l'onde de choc des émeutes de Ferguson et marque le retour en force d'une musique black pugnace qui ne s'occupe guère du commerce pour garder la tête dans les étoiles. Le rap de l'anxieux Californien est aspiré par un tourbillon où le funk est roi (celui, barré, de Funkadelic ou du Prince de Sign o' the times), mais se perd volontiers du côté du free jazz, de l'ambient et du slam. Les voix se mordent, se tordent et s'altèrent, comme autant de personnages hantés par les cauchemars de l'Amérique noire. De la charge politico-érotique hallucinante de For free ? aux métaphores de l'enragé The Blacker the berry (« Plus la mûre est noire, plus le jus est doux »), les textes sont denses, les sentiments enchevêtrés. Il faudra une multitude d'écoutes pour en épuiser la force, en percer les secrets.

I am going to try to write a review here that is hype-minimal, even given my title is a bit strong. I know lots have been waiting for this album, as have I, and I want to put out something here that has some substance. It is rare that I am moved a great deal by a modern hip-hop album. We are far-removed from genre-shaping classics like "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and "The Low End Theory". Upon hearing Kendrick's 2012 classic GKMC, I had renewed faith in the concept album in hip-hop, and after his "Control" verse, I was happy to see hip-hop's response to the challenge; specifically I think albums like "Cadillactica" last year, which for Big K.R.I.T. was quite a bit deeper than his debut "Live from the Underground", were developed with such precision and dedication to the craft *because* of the "Control" situation. I thought Lamar was almost certainly headed for a sophomore disappointment, solely for the reason that his major-label debut studio album was so intelligent, and captured his entire adolescence on wax. I thought, "what else will he have to draw on? Where will he find the fire?" I was thinking that this would be a "Reasonable Doubt"-"In My Lifetime, Vol 1" situation. Today, after hearing this album, I stand corrected, and am moved by what I heard. The central theme is Kendrick's take on the escalating racial tensions in the US resulting from institutional racism, and seemingly "takes place" in the 2+ years since the release of his first album, as there are several references to Lamar going through a post-GKMC depression on the album. With respect to institutional racism, Lamar discusses the multi-faceted emotional response to these escalating racial tensions; at some points the rapper is celebratory of his blackness, at others he is angry at the institution, and yet at others he is critical of the state of black culture and cries for change and self-empowerment. All the while Kendrick is also mapping out his personal emotional struggles since the release of GKMC and parallels these with the collective black culture, culminating in the powerful indictment "The Blacker the Berry". In this song Kendrick rasps out a lyrical assault on the institution, celebrating blackness unapologetically. The song describes a man who loves his blackness so much he desires to be more black, or to be perceived more black, to be perceived as the epitome of black culture. The crescendoes to a somber ending, citing the irony that such a strong stance may result in, explicitly naming black-on-black crime. The album then turns to its denouement, reinforcing the hypothesis that it's not about how you are perceived, not about the persona you put off ("You Ain't Gotta Lie (Momma Said)"); it's about self-respect, self-love, and the album narrative effectively ends on the album's premier single, with "Mortal Man" serving as a coda. Kendrick ties the underlying themes of self-doubt, naïvete, respect, self-pity, jealousy, perceived success and failure, and love from his own struggles and establishes a connection between these emotions and the black culture collective. The album is brilliant in its paradoxes, in its emotion, in his depiction of his life. Its blatant disregard of hip-hop's formula for success is its thesis: don't be number, don't fit in, you ain't gotta lie; be yourself, love yourself, empower yourself, and that is indeed beautiful. On top of all that, Kendrick's lyricism is absolutely insane on this album. I was a huge fan of Logic's "Under Pressure" last year, and thought lyrically that was perhaps a little better than GKMC, but that the album was a little too personal to be quite as good as GKMC. To Pimp a Butterfly took it to another level. "Momma" and "Hood Politics" to me stood out as just lyrical masterpieces. The production is very funk-heavy, obviously well-done considering the production team at TDE and the guest producers on this project. I'm not sure where this sits with the classics, only time will tell, but on my first listen through I feel that the moniker "King Kendrick" is definitely fitting. He has done it again.

para mi, de los mejores albums de la historia del hip hop vino en perfecto estado.

Anche se il mio album preferito è Mr. Morale (per me un 10/10) Capisco perché è così da critica e pubblico (per me è un 9,75/10). È un album con dei testi profondi e delle rime fantastiche, con una jazz che rende il tutto più spettacolare. E non mancano neanche le hit. Alright è un singolo fantastico. Kendrick è un grande

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