Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)

theesatisfaction have gotten some credit, though i dont like their music that much - theyre pretty direct about issues to do with blackness though

hey guys remember Black Messiah
Only one blickity black blacker than black album can exist in the public conscience at a time iirc

― tsrobodo, Wednesday, April 15, 2015 7:23 PM

and it will never be the jazmine sullivan album, sigh

― lex pretend, Wednesday, April 15, 2015 8:44 PM

I feel like the jazmine album would be a really natural comparison point for the kendrick album, given how much of it also pivots around media narratives of blackness and radical self-love. (And maybe dawn/d'angelo in terms of virtuoso self-expression?)

the Sullivan album is exactly the kind of modest triumph that is guaranteed not to inspire one think piece.

"u" is too real for the average ILMer

fwiw, I'm a black person who has spent large chunks of time in Montana. Jokes on you, Tanuki.

― The Reverend, Tuesday, April 14, 2015 4:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Montana's only black person, posts on ILM, thus proving my point ILM is the whitest board on the web.

tell us more about Montana and your very personal experiences with it and other less white parts of America

whats a dawn richard song that will convince me shes as good as people on here seem to think? (or as good as either BM or TPAB)

Swim Free from Blackheart.

It's the song that finally got me to understand why people love her on here so much. Her new album is a massive step up from her other solo albums in my opinion.

Dawn's whole thing is palpably different from Kendrick and D'Angelo and it's kind of silly to compare her to them IMO. That said, I love:

Black Lipstick
Change
Heaven
Save Me From U
Automatic
Pretty Wicked Things
86
Return of a Queen
Calypso
Adderall/Sold (Outerlude)
Swim Free
Phoenix

the way that i'm comparing them is that they're all making amazing joyous complex brilliant music right now that's being either crit-ted to death or ignored
Adderall/Sold is the song that I'm using off the new album to sway people to the light

Her new album is a massive step up from her other solo albums in my opinion.

― Kitchen Person,

^^

Amazed that people are down on 'u' - the moment at the very beginning of that track, where the lights abruptly go out, is one of my favourite single moments on the album. Institutionalized is the only track I feel compelled to skip, although I can see myself tiring for For Free after a while.

This album doesn't strike me as the kind where you can skip tracks

yeah i think part of the reason im taking a break from it is that im not sure it really works unless you sit through the whole thing.

even the most "listen to this all the way through" albums - even dawn richard! - end up having skippable tracks because most people's time isn't conveniently divided up into album lengths

though actually i think the middle section of TPAB isn't particularly like that; "wesley's theory" through to "king kunta" and "hood politics" through to "i" work incredibly well as suites but the songs work better as individual songs than you'd think

i skip 'these walls' but this album is full of huge jams.

'u' is some real scarface introspective rap shit. fuck 'sad boys' 2015

If I worked at Sears Portrait Studio, I would not want to hear sexy music while proofing pictures of people with their dogs. This is the only situation where skipping 'these walls' makes sense to me.

u is essential to me, esp since I'm dealing with some depression. It sounds like the self loathing internal monologue I can't shut off

This is p much my experience as well.

Also, it's funny that Black Messiah and Blackheart have been mentioned since those two and TPAB are really the only new music I'm fucking with rn

the songs work better as individual songs than you'd think

I confirmed this by listening on shuffle. Made me hear the songs individually, and they almost all work as just standalone pieces. (I mean, there are still some I like more than others, but the parts aren't entirely dependent on the whole.)

if you're skipping "u" you're not equipped to be listening to this album. end.

the songs work better as individual songs than you'd think

hooks and awesome sonic details everywhere.

these are otm. Definitely a capital-A album, but the songs definitely stand on their own.

"u" goes down as a top 10 hip hop song of all time.

slow down gandhi

lol

Big fan of the album but does anyone hear songs from it on the radio right now? Not that I'm surprised, just that where I am I've only heard "King Kunta" once & otherwise all GKMC stuff.

king kunta all the time

"I remember you was conflicted..." omg this is such a tedious, flow-wrecking thru line

but he was conflicted

"King Kunta" peaked at #29 on the rap/R&B airplay chart and dropped the last couple weeks, will be bummed if it never blossoms into a proper hit. they'd be dumb not to release "Alright" as the next single, i've heard that one out and people lose their shit to it. would love to hear "You Ain't Gotta Lie" on the radio eventually too.

i would've been shocked if this album had gotten popular even as much as good kid did... it's a wonky dense and weird piece of work, not really built for mass consumption

seems like its success will be album-level, not single-level.

yeah i think that's self-evident. but just because it probably won't have three top 10 heavy rotation rap radio singles like GKMC doesn't mean it can't have one or two.

I'm really curious how he's going to play this to festival crowds. I imagine the big crowd-pleasers will still be the GKMC hits. Wonder if he'll maintain any of the album sequencing or just mix it all up.

"King Kunta" peaked at #29 on the rap/R&B airplay chart and dropped the last couple weeks, will be bummed if it never blossoms into a proper hit. they'd be dumb not to release "Alright" as the next single, i've heard that one out and people lose their shit to it. would love to hear "You Ain't Gotta Lie" on the radio eventually too.

― some dude, Friday, May 15, 2015 11:44 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, "Alright" was the one I started playing out immediately when the album dropped although I've gotten good reactions to "King Kunta" too. Haven't tried anything else tho.

I'd be surprised if he didn't confine the bulk of his touring to europe; i think there's more money and exposure opportunities for "non-commercial" black artists over there

he's kind of huge over here tho?

Yeah -- only person besides Taylor Swift to have the #1 album for more than one week so far this year. Not exactly noncommercial.

wow what that's crazy

ime tour bookers tend not to put a lot of faith in black artists who put out highly acclaimed albums but not much in the way of au currant singles to tentpole festivals and arena tours, c.f. d'angelo, jazmine, miguel...
joey bada$$ for instance is doing as many or more dates overseas than in the states: http://theproera.com/tour/
i guess i'm saying noncommercial means something different when the stakes get raised high enough

and to be clear, i don't really agree with that logic and think it's pre-itunes thinking.

Yeah I mean he's obviously not Drake, e.g., in terms of the mainstream. But he's also obviously a pretty big star. I was going to compare him to OutKast ca. Stankonia, but Stankonia had a #1 single on it so maybe not. (Maybe Aquemini?)

Kendrick could hole himself away into a 'acclaimed cult artist with no radio presence' niche in the next 5-10 years but he's pretty huge right now. i mean J. Cole's album is selling in the same range (and its biggest single was about as big as "i") and he's touring arenas and amphitheatres this year.

"You Ain't Gotta Lie" and "Alright" have been the songs I've played most; hope his people see the light.

In an AP quiz I gave in April one of the questions was, Kendrick Lamar's Swimming Pool got a lot of airplay; 12 out of 16 students put quotation marks around "Swimming Pool."

Kendrick played at the second biggest stage at Roskilde a few years back, and it was packed as it's rarely been packed before. Like, once or twice in 40 years. This year, he's playing main stage, for tens of thousands of Danes. He is definitely huge over here, though I don't know what his sales are like.

so 75% of them undersotood title conventions?

Yeah, I guess I taught'em well :)

undersotood