Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)

"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

yeah, what Frederik said: he might be able to sell out MSG on the mainstage with a ton of support but that's a pretty risky booking
but put him in denmark...

again, J. Cole sold out MSG. Kendrick hasn't headlined MSG yet that i know of but that's not a "risky booking" by any stretch of the imagination.

j cole sold out msg with big sean, NB "ton of support". black hippy could probably sell out a few dates at msg at this point. you also missed the headline again: there's more money and larger audiences overseas so it wouldn't surprise me if he tours there primarily.

eh, Eminem and Jay-Z types tour the world...maybe the touring business is set up where Europe is more lucrative but TPAB debuted outside the top 10 in most countries in mainland Europe. just because a hugely popular rapper dropped a jazzy album with few radio smashes doesn't magically turn him into a Sun Ra making all his show money overseas.

okay, you clearly know much more about the live music industry than i do, keep the faith

i've been hearing "king kunta" on the radio station here some but before they started playing that they were playing "alright" as part of their requests countdown and on regular programming... but i haven't heard as much of either recently.

i dunno, you just seem very confident that Kendrick will "confine the bulk of his touring to Europe" and i have a hard time imagining that he'll be doing substantially more overseas dates vs. US concerts relative to any of his peers (his actual peers, not Joey Bada$$ and Jazmine Sullivan). we'll see in a few years or by the end of this album cycle, i suppose, it just doesn't seem like this obvious given.

was listening today and thought 'this album is pretttty much a fiery furnaces album'

http://www.kappit.com/img/pics/201502_1037_aefia_sm.png

Well then http://www.stereogum.com/1804259/kendrick-lamar-performed-at-sasquatch-and-only-did-one-song-from-to-pimp-a-butterfly/news/

I'll be bummed if that's true at Bonnaroo -- I'll be happy to hear some GKMC tracks, but what I really want is the new stuff. Especially since he played Bonnaroo on the actual GKMC tour. A rehash would be kinda lame for a headlining slot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kendrick-lamar-rapper-who-inspired-a-teacher-visits-a-high-school-that-embraces-his-work.htm

The Bonnaroo set was sort of odd. He was good, the songs individually were good, but the sequencing was bad and he kept killing his own vibe. First two-thirds was all GKMC stuff, plus "Fuckin' Problems." This was fine, but people were obviously waiting for the new stuff. He did "m.A.A.d. city" twice in a row, which as far as I could tell no one in the crowd was asking for. By the time he hit "Sing About Me," which slowed everything to a crawl for five minutes, a lot of people gave up on hearing new material and started streaming out. So when he actually got to the new stuff, he'd lost about a third of the audience. The new stuff was all good -- "i," "These Walls," "King Kunta" and "Alright," back to back. I just don't think he should've taken 50 minutes or so to get to it.

One thing that struck me is that he's still relatively new to working stages that big, and he doesn't quite have the showman chops yet to really build momentum and sustain it. He was friendly and wanted to work the crowd, but he kept letting the energy dissipate.

On the other hand, when he and Chance did cameos an hour later during Earth, Wind and Fire's set, they were both on fire.

literally?

a serpentine fire

It was the baptismal boogie fire of EWF.

(Who definitely do know how to work a big stage.)

He kept killing his own vibe

Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe (I'll Do it Myself)

it really is weird how slow he's been to add TPAB songs to his set. he did so many shows in support of GKMC that by the end of the album cycle it kind of became a joke how many times he did the same basic set in the same markets, you'd think he'd be chomping at the bit to change things up. almost makes me wonder if he has issues with memorizing new lyrics.

I heard he wants to do the new stuff properly with a full band. Makes sense. I don't know what set-up he's using now but if it's still just him and a DJ I can see why he feels it's not worth going in hard on the new album.

He had a full band at Bonnaroo. But yeah, it may be that they're just learning the new material a song at a time. They're up to four.

*takes long drag off vape pen*

used to be ILM would be all over it when a music video from a potential album of the year dropped

no-one's even revived the bigbang thread in the past two days

tbh i can't think of many times a video generated a lot of discussion on ilm, even a video that was generating discussion elsewhere

i think there have been times they've generated a lot of posts

from the nine seconds of it i saw a coworker watch it's not like it's a huge extension to kendrick's ~brand~ u kno

great video

*sigh*

http://pitchfork.com/news/60227-kendrick-lamar-to-fox-news-how-can-you-take-a-song-thats-about-hope-and-turn-it-into-hatred/

I like the video. I especially like the flashed grin at the end. Like, "Really -- we'll be alright!" The politics are offset by the goofiness. But they're also stark. Very much a 2015 time capsule video.

i find something about kendrick lamar a bit, i dunno, too melodic or song-based for me generally, at least on the first album. i ignored tpab until now, possibly cos like the same people who kept telling me to listen to frank ocean were telling me about this, even though i'd already listened to frank ocean at that time. like my old boss or someone. lol pitchfork i suppose.

anyway i heard "alright" via watching the video this week and think it's absolutely amazing, got goosebumps listening to it. still can't really get into the rest of the record though.

have a nice weekend everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZTYgq4EoRo

Yeah "Alright" is my favorite song this year

album keeps on giving for me.

The first 5 tracks live up to the hype and then it starts to meander a bit. The record could do with some edits here and there.

✖✖✖

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkeNd1Ni4Uw

Nah, i think the mid section run from 6-10 is the highlight: u, alright, for sale, momma, hood politics. Unassailable. New video is gold.

"For Sale?" sounds amazing in the sun

'These Walls' too

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

wow

holy shit

also at a protest I was at, a couple people were carrying "EVERY NIGGA IS A STAR" signs

Whats the song they break into at the very end?