Kendrick Lamar - 2017 Album - DAMN

I totally lose track of the metre during the closing sections of DNA - just after Kendrick switches to triplet flow and there's a big clash with the vocal sample. I have enough faith to suspect this is deliberate but it throws me off every time.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, April 19, 2017 1:21 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was kind of appreciating this on a long drive home last night. People will complain about him cramming his words in or it being messy, but it's more of an interplay with the beat - drifting on and off or seeming like it's slightly out of sync only to lock back in is purposeful and the vocal sample clash ramps it up

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/97/ff/9d/97ff9d8b10b96bf4c8d7cd6217ad9c2d.jpg

used to shop here as a kid

When I was a kid, I read an article in BMX Plus or something in which the author described riding his bike through the Alpha Beta doors. Until just a couple years ago, I didn't know that Alpha Beta was a supermarket chain. I had been running around calling all automatic doors "alpha beta doors".

xxxxpost

i wouldn't have minded so much a comparison to, say, "a change is gonna come"

but i feel like having kendrick lamar and pablo picasso in the same sentence sort of smacks of that peculiar need critics or intellectuals sometimes have to contextualize/legitimize hip hop. but always sort of doing the opposite and reaffirming the institutions / critical discourses that grant legitimacy, rather than highlighting asymmetrical configurations through which new music is distributed, consumed, evaluated.

you are clearly not suggesting that kendrick lamar needs to be compared to picasso in order to be considered seriously as an artist. but i do feel like there is a kind of weird undertone of "this record belongs in a museum" to that sentence. part of me thinks it's a very minor thing, but on the other hand i feel compelled to bring it up because i'm just really fucking tired of heavy-handed, euro-centric attempts to explain why hip hop is "important." (i'm not your review, to be clear.)

anyway, super stoked on "humble" -- my fav track so far, and the video is insane. i especially like the part where he's in the back of his car spreading grey poupon onto a slice of untoasted white bread

which led me to this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rappers-grey-poupon-hip-hop-lyrics_us_5800f933e4b0162c043b8009

*not talking about your review

xpost to mh, i always thought the most immediate connotation of "omega" is theological. when i read your original post i assumed you were assigning kl messianic status

if humble is the rappity rap bona fide track and DNA is the banger, Loyalty feels like the massive summer hit. has some of the same appeal and pace of bitch don't kill my vibe imo.

I feel like ELEMENT. is getting enough love. Easily my favorite hook on the album.

xxp that was my joke, yeah

"loyalty" is the most i've enjoyed rihanna in years

grr *isn't getting enough love.

I have only listened to this twice, but was getting nice summer vibes from Pride earlier. Sick album.

i feel compelled to bring it up because i'm just really fucking tired of heavy-handed, euro-centric attempts to explain why hip hop is "important." (i'm not your review, to be clear.)

― budo jeru, Wednesday, April 19, 2017 2:51 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i understand this thinking, but on the other hand LOTS of people still need it spelled out for them. And, in my defense, will be the first to admit Rolling Stone readers aren't necessarily the ones needing to see what I think Kendrick's album means in a world listening to a XXXTencion Soundcloud stream on cellphone speakers.

yeah, fair enough

Kendrick's not a "beta" as much as he's an introvert dominating an extrovert's game, much like early Nas.

maybe let's not keep using idiot poison-words in an unrelated thread, just sayin

ot motherfucking m

who uses alpha/beta to talk about humans in a way that isn't incoherent red pill types raging about their insecurity?

literally no-one. the second anybody opts into that vocabulary is the second you can write off 100% of their opinions

Ditto pejorative use of SJW.

http://i.makeagif.com/media/2-26-2014/4daPsl.gif

fwiw there's a few songs on this album that won't budge from my head (ELEMENT, PRIDE, DUCKWORTH) but the one I really can't shake is LUST, which is already a track of the year contender maybe

who uses alpha/beta to talk about humans in a way that isn't incoherent red pill types raging about their insecurity?

tbf I think this is a bit of harsh judgment on Dominique, who is def not an incoherent red pill type raging about his masculinity (also he is hottt iirc)

Total babe yeah

but i feel like having kendrick lamar and pablo picasso in the same sentence sort of smacks of that peculiar need critics or intellectuals sometimes have to contextualize/legitimize hip hop. but always sort of doing the opposite and reaffirming the institutions / critical discourses that grant legitimacy, rather than highlighting asymmetrical configurations through which new music is distributed, consumed, evaluated.

you are clearly not suggesting that kendrick lamar needs to be compared to picasso in order to be considered seriously as an artist. but i do feel like there is a kind of weird undertone of "this record belongs in a museum" to that sentence. part of me thinks it's a very minor thing, but on the other hand i feel compelled to bring it up because i'm just really fucking tired of heavy-handed, euro-centric attempts to explain why hip hop is "important." (i'm not your review, to be clear.)

Don Cheadle time

http://pitchfork.com/news/73004-don-cheadle-talks-kendrick-lamars-dna-video-being-the-original-kung-fu-kenny/

I completely see what you mean and I argued this point many times, though TPAB is kind of already archived at Harvard and the man himself is being compared to Gandhi. The problem I have is I feel like Lamar's greatness and virtuosity got shoved down everybody's throat to the point that sometimes it's hard to enjoy as a piece of music. Even very positive opinions somehow feel like this kind of huge relief that it didn't turn out to be a huge letdown and track with U2 didn't turn out to be complete piece of shit. Honestly, it's hard to be surprised about all those dumbass theories with second album, people simply needed more than music to satisfy their expectations, kind of same thing happened to Life of Pablo or Blonde
― piramjida, Wednesday, April 19, 2017 7:37 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This

After three listens, I'm starting to think this won't match the impossibly high standard that GKMC and TPAB set for me. It's a slight dip from perfect to very good. I get a different song stuck in my head every day - today is "Fear", which is such a perfect pairing of beat and lyrics

i didn't know about the harvard thing, it's kind of interesting:

http://hiphoparchive.org/blog/3513-harvard-recognizes-hiphop-classics

NB: Life of Pablo and Blonde are not good albums tho

Made at best above average artists too

I don't think there is another album/movie/TV show/play/book that addresses these concerns with that level of artistry and popularity. Like maybe the only competition is Lemonade, and a lot of that was subtext and readings as opposed to the more explicit politics of TPAB

― SSN Lucci (Whiney G. Weingarten), 19. april 2017 20:05 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think perhaps Ta-nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me will be a contender. No, not as many has read that as has heard King Kunta, but Guernica wasn't the smash hit poster of 37 either.

I phrased it as a question bc you gotta respect DL and wondered if I was missing something.

obv this is full of bars but it's the hooks I'm struck by on this, the soft subtle inflections to kendrick's voice, the measured woozy slowness. he has a good ear for voices; love the sample of RAT BOY on lust. the relative downbeatness of this suits me just fine

Picasso was kind of a rock star in his day.

He had a life

"Lamar's greatness and virtuosity got shoved down everybody's throat to the point that sometimes it's hard to enjoy as a piece of music"

you just have to ignore everything that people write about him. it's the worst. just listen to him instead.

i liked this. just listening this morning while playing resogun. it's not my favorite paranoid jesus album but it has a lot of competition for that title. some really good songs though. more good ones than bad ones. and the good ones definitely invigorating/exciting in that way that he has of invigorating/exciting.

(and the bad not really bad just not as good as the good...)

sure, but can you really do that? let's say you've never heard anything about Kendrick and you listen to DAMN - there's still a lot to enjoy musically but I feel like you'd have trouble interpreting stuff on this album if you weren't aware of the status he's gotten after To Pimp a Butterfly. it just often feels like he actually embraces what people say about him and says things that only make sense or feel important when spoken from a man in his position (i.e. who actually would give a shit about this Pride/Humble juxtaposition if it wasn't image of a man being called the best rapper alive fighting his sins). and it's obviously true and I am not going to argue otherwise - K. Dot at this point is more than a rapper but it's really suffocating when a record is being considered important more than enjoyable

Why?

By which I mean, even granting the fact that it is nigh impossible to enjoy something in a vacuum divorced from other people's opinions, particularly when it comes to one of the most popular artists currently on the scene, why should other people's opinions on a particular album's position in the Official Canon of Music(TM) inhibit you from interacting with the album on your own terms?

tbf, this is probably Kendrick's least "important" record since 2011 AND his most "enjoyable" probably ever

something about this album is making certain people think in thoughtpieces
it's just a really really good album

i kept reading too much about Get Out and then i never went and saw it. i got sick of it a little. and everyone's "take". that was my fault though. i was gonna go see it the first day and didn't. kendrick the get out of rappers! so i didn't read about the new one. just fired up the spotify on the PS4 and enjoyed the experience. and almost beat my record on resongun: demolition mode too. (21st in the world, by the way...)

yeah, it is definitely an album for simpletons like me.

though there is still a lot going on.

love that rihanna one by the way.

If the album is as timeless as everyone will claim there's nothing wrong with waiting out the avalanche of discussion & going back to it when the air has cleared

something about this album is making certain people think in thoughtpieces

lol that something is "released by Kendrick Lamar"

the new Actress album is really not good for playing Resogun though. so boring. i quickly found a Perlon mix to listen to and everything was okay again.

swerve swerve swerve swerve deeper now

"Feel"'s production, the kinda watery synth pad and the ghostly processed voice almost reminds me of a hip hop version of early Burial

If the album is as timeless as everyone will claim there's nothing wrong with waiting out the avalanche of discussion & going back to it when the air has cleared

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, April 20, 2017 12:50 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

obv nothing wrong w/ doing this even for albums that aren't "timeless"