![]() For better or worse, a mainstream US rapper has as much influence on the youth as almost any politician – this is a record which was streamed 9.6 million times on the day of its release. In recent years, there’s been increased media attention towards incidents where young black males in America are killed by prejudiced police officers, many of whom escape substantial punishment. The songs are punctuated with excerpts from a spoken word poem which, although powerfully-worded, begins to feel a little intrusive after repeated listens, and with so many tracks broken up by instrumental transitions and skits, some of the more lyrically dense verses here could’ve done with more space.īut these aren’t major criticisms when the album’s mission is this exhilarating. While Lamar’s ambition is to be admired, there are moments when To Pimp A Butterfly gets slightly tangled up in its own structural complexity. The 2014 single i initially raised a few eyebrows due to its cheesy chorus and Carlos Santana-esque guitar licks, but here a rawer version appears as the empowered, optimistic counterpart to u – a devastating track where Kendrick breaks down and literally cries as he raps – and therefore plays a vital role. ![]() The album’s most instantly-gratifying, upbeat bangers such as These Walls and King Kunta are loaded with layers of meaning, with the former first presenting itself as a sex jam before unfolding into a multi-faceted psychological metaphor, while the latter is named in reference to Kunta Kinte – the legendary enslaved man who chose to have his foot amputated rather than be castrated after trying to escape a Virginia plantation. With a cast of musicians that includes George Clinton, alto sax player Terrace Martin, pianist Robert Glasper, Flying Lotus and his affiliated bass virtuoso Thundercat and many more, the sunkissed West Coast hip-hop beats here sporadically burst into noodly jazz. ![]() But, it turns out, while To Pimp A Butterfly is densely layered, Kendrick Lamar’s core message is loud and clear. This looked like a complicated one, the album’s title (a play on To Kill A Mockingbird, surely?) and the cover art (depicting a group of black males waving wads of cash besides a dead caucasian judge on the White House lawn) were a lot to process to already. ![]() In the build up towards To Pimp A Butterfly, critics around the world took a deep breath and prepared to join a race to get their verdict up first – such is the relentless climate of an online economy, where fast-tracked reactions generate traffic and ad revenue is driven by clicks. ![]()
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