Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)

kunta, blacker the berry, all these tracks work better as album tracks than standalone moments IMO.

critics being a tad cautious is no bad thing. there is something cluttered about the album. it is very dense. but not always in a good way. theres a lot to process, but im not sure what to actually take away from it all. not yet at least. i get that the album is brilliant but im not really sure why, other than that a lot of effort has been expended. i think that article is excellent though the meaning/expectations of a HHM changes depending on the era. nas wasn't 'political', neither was biggie, which the article says has alwyas been important, not like PE or this new kendrick album for instance.

"as with the d'angelo album it's noticeable how many people who aren't checking for any other rap or r&b check for these two"

calling your album black messiah probably helps.

"King Kunta" sounds great on the radio!

lex i agree that the opening skit thing on "for free" comes off as kinda sus but i don't really think kendrick had "lookin' ass" on his mind when he made it

― are... are you saying you fucked a gazelle? (slothroprhymes), Thursday, March 26, 2015 4:00 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah the phrasing is too similar, it's pretty obviously a clapback to recent misandry anthems by female rappers and singers

right thats what i meant by it being sus, but "[insert term here]-ass n---a" has been a piece of slang for quite some time

that part of "for free" put a bad taste in my mouth too, reminds me of the mean-spirited obviously-written-by-the-dudes female monologues on albums from the 80s like alexander o'neal's hearsay

and therefore sounds dated on arrival

i just heard that as kendrick showing hes not some goody two shoes rapper like people might have thought. like, him saying he can do 'we dont love these hoes etc' too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNJ7phdqFSo

"if you care about it this much please feel free to email all our editors"

i actually fault the record label more than the editors or writers.

Considering that "For Free" is using the gold digger narrative as a metaphor for how America treats black men, implying that it's a misogynist response to Nicki Minaj involves fundamentally misunderstanding the subtext of the song.

kendrick has been making tracks/mixtapes/etc for what 10+ years now? i rarely see that mentioned. like his last album was the first thing he ever did.

section 80 weirdly underrated imo; i still am not sure i don't like it more than good kid

Considering that "For Free" is using the gold digger narrative as a metaphor for how America treats black men

but why put this in the mouth of a (parody of a) black woman?

(when i first heard it my initial horror was alleviated by the twist!metaphor at the end but idk whether it suffices, the first verse is...not good)

"Considering that "For Free" is using the gold digger narrative as a metaphor for how America treats black men, implying that it's a misogynist response to Nicki Minaj involves fundamentally misunderstanding the subtext of the song."

there are plenty other narratives you could use rather than ones about gold diggers... im pretty sure he knew it could/would be read both ways, not least because of the beat and what we associate with that kind of funk. tbh that song just makes me think of the coup.

not cos the coup have funk like that but cos the whole thing, whole album maybe, is this kind of meta funk, meta-gangsta shit. in fact the whole thing might be the most meta-rap album anyone in his position has ever made. reminds me a bit of why ive never really gotten into the coup, even when theyve tried to sound like more gangsta bay area guys, they make you keep that same kind of narrative distance.

i could never listen to an entire coup album.

Considering that "For Free" is using the gold digger narrative as a metaphor for how America treats black men, implying that it's a misogynist response to Nicki Minaj involves fundamentally misunderstanding the subtext of the song.

― DJP, Thursday, March 26, 2015 12:16 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thank you, i was scrolling down this convo waiting for someone to point this out

but why put this in the mouth of a (parody of a) black woman?

Because it's a pretty rudimentary bait-and-switch; dress the actual sentiment up in clothes that trick the listener into thinking the song is going to be about Topic A before wrong-footing them into Topic B. It strikes me that this is one of the less subtle narrative tricks happening on the album.

There's also an entire conversation about how reading that intro as a direct response to Nicki involves wholesale buying into the view of black men that the song is tearing down but I should probably do my actual day job at some point today.

aint no fun if the homies cant have none was also a metaphor for institutional structures keeping black communities from accessing america's riches.

try harder

Pretty sure if that intro was intended as a response to Nicki it would have been phrased as a VERSE rather than the on-running monologue is actually is.

ok in no way is it even slightly related to a long-running lineage of black female pop (obviously not just nicki), fine, whatever

Isn't it drawing on a caricature that is also addressed from a different direction in said long-running lineage of black female pop? It's the whole shared source material rather than direct influence thing again.

I mean I've lost count of the number of movies or TV shows I've seen with that specific caricature in them.

it's a long-running trope in depictions of black relationships & kendrick is underscoring what that trope is really about

xp!

do you guys think the woman in the track has an actual real life uncle named Sam or something

That's not the argument being made. The argument being made is that it is a subversion of expectation; the "black woman" you think is being disrespected on this song is not actually a black woman. The entire point is that America uses black men in the same manner typified by the "gold digger" stereotype, which is blatantly clear from even half-listening to the lyrics of the song and the final response from the hypothetical gold digger in the song "I'mma get my Uncle Sam to fuck you up. You ain't no king."

xposted into irrelevancy but dammit, I typed it so I'm hitting submit

But still. There are an awful lot of evil women amongst the symbols that Kendrick uses, right?

... No? Unless you think every female character on Section.80 is evil, which is a stretch. As far as I can tell, it's just Sherane (who isn't even actually evil but rather is as much a product of the environment as Kendick, his friends and their enemies are) and Lucy (who is literally The Devil and not actually a woman)

i dont think keisha, tammy and sherane (on section.80 and GKMC) are supposed to be "evil" in the least. i guess you could argue about whatever lucy represents on butterfly but i don't buy that even the latter is meant as any sort of blanket sexist statement

daaaaaamnit DJP shot first

Lucy (who is literally The Devil and not actually a woman)

this is sledgehammer obvious, no?

and DJP otm that the Uncle Sam crack makes it clear what's going on w that character/voice

ilxor: kendrick's got yams in the conference room
RT: Yeah, I'd like to bite on some of that!
ilx: o_O

<Tanuki goes to conference room, sees the yams are actually a metaphor derived from contemporary black culture and literature with direct political implications>

RT: Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are a ton of things about this album that are sledgehammer obvious that people are hemming and hawing over being "difficult" and "dense" because it's a collection of (IMO intentionally) contradictory viewpoints coming from a black man about being a black man in America in 2015.

can someone explain the "yams are the powers that be" thing to me...? that's one that's gone by me

xp

Jesus Christ you guys

aint no fun if the homies cant have none was also a metaphor for institutional structures keeping black communities from accessing america's riches.

― StillAdvance, Thursday, March 26, 2015 11:44 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm boggling at this

go looking for a humorous yam image and you just come across yet another example of how crazy this country is...

http://www.antiquelabelcompany.com/store/secure/images/products/496.jpg

i had to order this cd on the internet. which i hate to do. but i don't know when i will ever get to a town with a store, so, you gotta do what you gotta do.

He's a great curator. The production is another level.

For Free is sadly iron age and undeniably misogynistic, just like RTJ.

Album will go down as canon.

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/tumblr_nl94zbo1s31s2yegdo1_400.gif?w=388&h=260

Institutionalized sounds amazingly like a Quasimoto song. West Coast influences all over this album is fantastic. From Quas to Coup to Warren G to Quik to E40 to Pac, it's great. But unlike all those it has a more dark, claustrophobic feel to it.

xpost how did u find such a luducrously appropriate raccoon gif so quickly

idk i always felt Me Against The World was a pretty dark&claustrophobic record

yes but Pac had lots of well known undeniably open and bouncy songs (life goes on, changes, all eyez, ambitionz, i aint mad at cha, how do u want it etc)

this album gets better and better the more you listen to it. busdriver was otm, as far as it being what FF/myka 9 should have made, but i feel like its the album lupe fiasco has been wanting to make, but has been too disillusioned/cynical to actually do. me against the world had temptation and old school on it but it was largely still def, dark, cynical (i mean, it had the song 'fuck the world' on it). plus that whole era sounded like that.

2pac's Undeniably Open and Bouncy Mixtape