Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)

it's funny how the more political stuff on The Pitch completely does not jibe with the editorial style & politics of the main site though

xp same, but i would be down with more interview pieces tho'. Wanna hear kendrick's opinions and producer input.

it's an album that has definitely struck a chord with black listeners/writers and i think that's awesome. worrying or wondering about what white listeners think of it (uh, they really like kendrick) is a waste of time though. or maybe i just don't care what they think. i rarely do.

This is an album for which I want a 100-word blurb tbh

<i>i don't think the phrase "too black" exists in a white music nerd's vocabulary.</i>

Of course it does. But it's usually in reference to the opening of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" or Spinal Tap.

I have literally never heard anyone use "too black" as a descriptor of music

the actual review on pitchfork by jenkins was pretty solid and not at all thinkpiecey
But it doesn't stop the internet from throwing a fit over a 9.3 rating.

fish gotta swim, ppl on twitter gotta care inordinately about the specific number on a p4k review

i was really enjoying lupe fiasco's food & liquor this morning. i'd never heard it! did you guys like that one? i should look for an old thread. that album isn't TOO black. it's juuuuuust black enough. hahaha! i might play it again right now once i get this salsa album off the turntable.

(Lupe's album also has a great spoken word intro on it and it's actually very similar to the incendiary spoken word intro on that jazz album i posted above! the one from oakland. where the pitchfork social worker is from. everything's coming together today...............)

Scott, I really look forward to visiting your store this fall, for real

anytime! i am usually here. just not on sunday.

that album looks nuts, would listen

i mean i'm open on sunday but i'm not usually working. if i can help it.

it's amazing! that jazz record. very happy to get a copy.

it's a scam but it won't last. the new yorker article made a good point that apple could just make its own streaming service linked to itunes, have it come preinstalled on the next gen of iphones or the new osx, and basically put spotify out of business

i'm vaguely optimistic about the potential for streaming services to actually put $ back in music. it has desirable properties in terms of scale too, u don't need to pay the fixed costs of producing & shipping millions of cd's just upload a file to a site.

― flopson, Thursday, March 19, 2015 11:44 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Spotify won't go out of business if Apple does that, because not everybody owns (or wants to own) Apple products.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, March 19, 2015 11:46 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Google is already doing this on Android which is a way bigger platform than iOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KZJ75BMa-s

at the end of the album william winters has a special message that includes a big FUCK YOU to everyone listening!

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i haven't heard the record yet but i have many hours of driving ahead of me this weekend, looking forward to digging in.

this album was just one of the many reasons that 1989 blew my mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qYjAXU38O8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV36uR9YU48

and done by the forces of nature the same year? whoooooooo that was a very black year. the best!

i mean, i was miserable, but one of the best for music...

also haven't listened to this yet, but it might be of interest:
https://soundcloud.com/runp/to-pimp-a-butterfly-samples-mix

haha thanks for posting those, totally listening to the whole thing now. (also 1989 for 3 Feet High and Rising and No One Can Do it Better)

I cannot read the number "1989" without hearing it in Chuck D's voice. (Including when I see the cover of the Taylor Swift album.)

The Pitch thing is overdone, but "Kanye's still responding to the original post" is pretty otm.

Also I will cut people slack on TPAB think pieces because the whole album's a think piece. It feels like you oughta say something back to it (even if you oughtn't).

lol, i do that 1989 thing too

fyi the guy who wrote the pitchfork piece is indeed a "real writer" http://www.carvellwallace.com/

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/kendrick-lamar-to-pimp-a-butterfly-20150319

i said music writer. not real writer.

sorry the accusation wasn't that he's not a "real writer" but that he's not an "actual music writer" - so yeah, maybe he's no larry fitzmaurice on the grind if that factors into your estimation of the piece somehow

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how does one become an actual music writer

no, i think the personal reactions are interesting. even in that piece i linked to way above somewhere. i had problems with the music writing aspect of that too, but not the writer's own feelings. wish people would stick to the personal, but i even understand the projections. it IS that kind of album. plus, lots of people - even a lot of music writers - aren't really used to listening to challenging music. i would call this album challenging. deep. dense. i'm used to albums like that. most of the people here are. but most people in the world aren't. most people avoid challenging like the plague.

dude, anthony, you KNOW what i meant. he's a social worker who writes sometimes.

and what are you? to be clear, i thought the piece was full of hot air myself, i just think it's ironic and misguided to start suggesting people are dilettantes

i didn't have a problem with the actual writing. just some of the silly assumptions. it read like something someone who doesn't write about music a lot would write. like someone's dad or something...

ok now you're REALLY being ironic

"leave thinkpieces to the childless full-time blurb writers"

hoo boy, never mind. what am i? i fucking rule at that shit. don't even...

can we have a rap battle now?

no i'm keeping a respectful distance from writing about rap right now, let alone rapping

I think the point is that it's nice to know something about the author - for any site - if that person isn't a regular contributor and the piece is basically an op-ed. Like if I read the NYT and a writer on the editorial page isn't a columnist it's nice to know where the writer is coming from.

for the record, ALL i've ever written has been about music. everything. i've never written about anything else. ever. so, you know, it's a thing. music writing.

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lol whatever scott the point is there if you wanna get it

yeah i don't want to go get it. i don't get it. it doesn't matter.

my main problem w/ the pitch piece is that it sets kendrick up against rap more broadly & suggests the entire genre is easy to write off while kendrick is not, which is kinda fucked up

It's also kinda what the album suggests too, though?

Not the genre. Contemporary (non-killer mike) rap.

i dont hear that exactly. i hear someone taking rap in a direction no one else is, but kendrick is not the only rapper with an honest perspective

The whole thing about his massive struggle to resist temptation and stereotyping seems to suggest that most of his peers are giving in to "Lucy" though. In a sms this is the first Christian rap album proper. He's writing like st jerome.