Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)

thanks!

the symphony thing was a cool one-off although really Kendrick and his band nail the material so well that the whole tour is gonna be fire.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/the-sound-and-the-fury-of-kendrick-lamar-at-the-kennedy-center/2015/10/21/c4497e56-77f0-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html?wprss=rss_story-style-lateststories&tid=sm_tw_st

Chris Richards review of NSO gig in Washington Post offers praise, and then nitpicks a bit

But just as the march of time has made “To Pimp A Butterfly” feel more consequential, the album’s flaws continue to chafe in equal measure. Lamar obviously shouldn’t be punished for his ambition, but his music often feels like it’s doing everything in its power to impress you with its technicality, its thoughtfulness and its deep-deep depth. It can sound like music that’s trying to be important instead of just being.

Is that a Kendrick problem or a virtuoso problem? Virtuosity gives an artist great power over the listener, but it also leaves him exposed. Tremendous skill can extinguish the ambiguity in music, making everything visible — and everything visible can be scrutinized.

And while Lamar does plenty of self-scrutinizing in his lyrics, he often comes across as an artist weighed down by the burden of his own greatness. Or maybe he’s just shouldering the impossible expectations of those who see him as rap’s lone savior, fighting the good fight that Drake, Kanye West and other celebrity-minded rap stars appear unfit for.

...“Loving you is complicated,” he knowingly declares into the mirror on “u,” a song he performed on Tuesday with an almost frantic intensity. “I place blame on you still, place shame on you still,” Lamar rapped. “Feel like you ain’t s---, feel like you don’t feel.”

This was a powerful moment, but a difficult one to actually hear. More often than not throughout the performance, the music swelled into a vague, high-decibel fog, with the symphony — conducted by Steven Reineke — forfeiting its nuance to Lamar’s way-too-loud backing quartet and a series of pre-recorded supporting tracks that should have been left at home

i went to this as well (like 2 hours before the show i checked the kennedy center box office online & a few available tickets popped up. still expensive.. worth it)
thought it was amazing.
the lyrics are so dense and went by so fast live it was hard to make out everything, sure, but i didn't really think the music was too loud. seemed like a lot of the crowd literally knew all of them word for word (though not so much in the most expensive seats front and center). he did change out some of the curse words some of the time (iirc said something else instead of "bitch" in 'king kunta')
crowd was really into it & show went by way too fast. would definitely go to the next one at lincoln theatre if i can get a ticket for that

e’s just shouldering the impossible expectations of those who see him as rap’s lone savior, fighting the good fight that Drake, Kanye West and other celebrity-minded rap stars appear unfit

some classic projecting by the writer. Why would Richards care about those people who think Kendrick is "fighting the good fight" against celebrity-minded rap stars?

I do think there's an interesting schism btwn Kendrick's breezier (but still technically dazzling) guest verses and his albums, but Richards' ideas on Kendrick there don't feel complete

he did change out some of the curse words some of the time (iirc said something else instead of "bitch" in 'king kunta')

yeah there was a little of that (also dropped a lot of n-words out of "Alright") but it seemed more like ad libbing that censorship considering what words he DID let fly throughout the night.

And while Lamar does plenty of self-scrutinizing in his lyrics, he often comes across as an artist weighed down by the burden of his own greatness.

I think maybe if this dude goes back and reads through some of Kendrick's lyric sheets, he might get a clue as to what burdens are in play here.

Sure, but there's still a certain messiah complex at play w kendrick that sets his burden apart from other rappers'.

without stanning, it's hard not to include Kendrick among the most creative, intelligent and successful musicians of the past decade; imo his awareness of his level of achievement doesn't seem any more burdensome than, say, peyton manning's or steven tyler's.

though i'm sure (i hope?) it's unintentional, there's the ghost of "uppity" haunting any sort of examination of kendrick's loving himself. given the man's artistic focus, i daresay that's worth going out of your way to avoid.

Uppity's not an option. His art is uptight though. It's what he does.

feels like ppl are looking for something wrong with it. its not supposed to be all things to all people

http://www.ticketmaster.com/tde-presents-1st-annual-kuntas-groove-new-york-new-york-11-02-2015/event/00004F5EBAB1454C?artistid=1480454&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=3&tm_link=artist_msg-0_00004F5EBAB1454C
tix disappeared instantly unsurprisingly

unless you want to do the 350 a pop meet and greet package, what a world what a world

Not to mention the venue "upgrade" from Webster to Terminal 5

damn the new song he did on fallon tonight was absurd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZJXvjeWlVA&feature=youtu.be

no one is on his level, fuck

http://acltv.com/2015/09/28/new-tapings-kendrick-lamar-and-dangelo-and-the-vanguard/
^d flaked (NO!) but Kendrick didn't and this is airing this Saturday. Set your DVRs

oh man I hope they give Kendrick the whole hour on ACL

i from ACL: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/watch-kendrick-lamars-empowering-i-performance-at-acl-20160107

i read and thought about this album more than i listened to it last year.

i love that new song. who is in his band? they sound ridiculously good.

Dion "Dzyne" Friley - music director, playback
Tony "Chicago" Russell - bass, keybass
Robert "Rob G" Gueringer - guitar
John Whitt, Jr. - keyboards
Tony "Rico" Nichols - drums

that is really hot

oh my god that Fallon performance

holy fucking shit

is it me or is he kinda just doing like, slam poetry (not a criticism) now w a really badass band?

bc it's lyrically so dense and hard to unpack on first listen

"slam" was my first though too

*thought

he's done stuff that has been more jammy before. his lyrics are def pretty dense on first listen but this song is pretty musical.

his grammy campaign strut has been fun to watch

he's done stuff that has been more jammy before. his lyrics are def pretty dense on first listen but this song is pretty musical.

yeah when he stretches out into those legato phrases he really points out how it's not just words over music imo - I don't think he's doing slam poetry over a band, I think he's the lead player in the band and his instrument is his voice

rousing applause for that rhythm section, plz

that's the opposite of a jam, it's a structured, tight as fuck prog-hop exocet. amazing

breh

british people gettin' excited, deal

the way he builds up steam to that final section is breathtaking

super-saiyan is a fair (and oft-youtube commented) assessment

i keep watching the king kunta video, it's hypnotic. the camera moves and the dancing, all of it. there's this part from abt 2:08 to 2:27 where kendrick and everyone else starts dancing to their left then they move back right and the camera shifts with them and idk if it was thoroughly choreographed but it's amazing.

as far as the TPAB era videos go

Kunta > i > Alright > For Free? > u/For Sale? > These Walls

"Never Catch Me" would be right up there

"never catch me" is #1 in that list for me because i cant watch it without sobbing

definitely think kendrick is some new & incomprehensible source of power, where are things like this even coming from. so cool to get to watch somebody going clear in front of your eyes

what a weird song to throw the old "slam poetry" accusation at, it's just a rap song w/o 16 bar verse and chorus structure.

par for the course imo, nobody thinks about what something might be doing musically now, they just look for "what's the nearest association I can make w/this." this is a consequence of the speed of social media imo and isn't really a knock on anybody personally tbh, it's just how it is now - ppl reflect for about 60 seconds, and as soon as they have a near referent, that's their opinion

"never catch me" is #1 in that list for me because i cant watch it without sobbing

^^^^

Probably my favorite music video this decade.

the fact that he hasn't released a studio version of the Colbert song 13 months later gives me dim hope but i'll really be bummed if the Tonight Show song never gets released, i really think it might be one of my favorite things he's ever done.

what a weird song to throw the old "slam poetry" accusation at, it's just a rap song w/o 16 bar verse and chorus structure.

― some dude, Friday, January 8, 2016 7:32 PM (19 minutes ago)

eh it was a first impression, based mostly on delivery. Shit's tight.

he seems to have a lot of worthy stuff just lying around, i.e. the track that showed up in that Beats by Dre commercial a couple years back

wow that was intense