Kendrick Lamar Album Discussion 4-14-17

Mister B. wrote: »

Like it or not......my album review:

“All hail King Kendrick!”

Yep. That’s what’s most of the hip-hop world has been shouting since the young Mr. Kendrick Duckworth’s last offering to the world, To ? A Butterfly, won the title of Best Rap Album last year at the Grammys. Since then, we’ve all anointed the metrication of his talents, flow, and creativity, and was even super amped at that now-infamous Control verse that put half of hip-hop young field on notice that he was out to claim the title. After a compilation album Untitled Unmastered gave us a tease at what was to come, plus his big “? you” performance to cops everywhere at the 2016 Grammys, most of the hip-hop community feels as though he’s validated that statement of being the crème de la crème of the world of bars and beats.

So now, the newest champ of rhymes and life has graced the world with DAMN., which goes deeper into the world of the king and how he’s handling the this new strange world of royalty, loyalty, power, fame, and the game. This album dives pretty deep into the rabbit hole of Wonderbars and a who’s who of producers, mostly led by Sounwave, Mike Will Made It, and Top Dawg (obviously).

K-Dot is KING. Deal with it: In the wake of hip-hop’s resurgence over the last few years, this album is able to do what quite frankly, 99.5% of other albums couldn’t – venture sonically into different realms of music, while still staying true to its roots. The last album to accomplish this feat on this level was Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. This album see us listeners hear the adventure of Kendrick’s alter ego, Kung-Fu Kenny, and his repeated lines of “nobody’s praying for me”, which he figures by now, goes with the territory of being the top of the food chain. While he deals with it mostly with no worries, the album starts with him telling a story of an old woman who claims he’s lost his life on “Blood”. Using the ? News clips starts off the first real song of the album, DNA, which is the album strongest banger track, and will be in ALL clubs for the next three months, guaranteed. DJ Kid Capri provides us with that mixtape feel, announcing “new ? ” as the album switches to “Yah” (as well as several tracks) and all the news that comes with the being a target now. “Element”, an up tempo track will surely have us all jamming to the hook of (“If I gotta slap a ? -ass ? , I’ma make it look sexy/If I gotta go hard on a bih, I’ma make it look sexy/I pull up, hop out, hair out, made it look sexy/They won’t take me out my element/Naaaaah, take me out my element.”) “Feel” is just that: how he feels about…everything: who’s after his spot, whether he’s now a legend, and how he should feel about being looked up to….and why no one’s praying for him.

The ups and downs are all there throughout the album, with very little guest spots: Rhianna joins the journey for “Loyalty”, Zacari helps out on “Love”, even U2 is featured on “? ”. The last three tracks of “Fear”, “? ”, and “Duckworth” all seem to interlock better than anything else here as we get a glimpse into a childhood of ass beatings everywhere in a seven-year-old’s life (“I’ll beat your ass if you tell them social workers he live here/I’ll beat your ass if I beat your ass twice and you’re still here”), what’s it’s like to be treated as boss in the game now blessed by ? , to a story of how the Kendrick Lamar we know almost never happened if one of his partners had been killed, but decided to patch up a beef and pursue the rap game. All in all, K-Dot opens up his whole dimension we haven’t seen in his personal life since good kid/M.A.A.D. City, and while his flow still reigns supreme, it’s more of the openness of this album that has made it stand out in 2017 from most others.

Victory lap? It COULD’VE been: OK, like I said before – Kendrick IS king right now. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have questions or things about this album I really couldn’t ride with. My first gripe is the constant up and down feeling out of the album. Just when DNA puts you in a fired up move, Yah takes your emotions right back down to almost near-depression levels. Just when Fear has you feeling like “DAMN. That’s some real spit”, ? sounds more like a vogue-Justin Timberlake-like track. Oh: that’s the second gripe I have with this one. I can understand coming out-of-pocket, but too many tracks sound like other artists. “Loyalty” sounds like something that actually was left off of Aubrey’s “More Life”, and “Love” has a real “Hotline Bling” feel to it. For all the angles each song addressed in his life, there wasn’t enough “jams” on here for me to really enjoy. “DNA” goes nuts (and was finally released as a video, with Don Cheadle doing the honors there) and “Element” brings me something to two-step to, but for the most part this isn’t an album that bangs in the whip, which was one of the things GK/MC and TPAB was able to do regularly. For a Kendrick album, there are a few throwaways here, and that kind of stunned me.

My scores:
Lyricism: 9.5/10

Production: 9/10

Album Cohesiveness: 9.25/10

Replay Value: 7/10

Overall: 8.5/10

Final Thoughts: When I first heard this album had dropped, coming off of Joey Bada$$’s release, I was sure DAMN would up that ante, and maybe touched more on police brutality, Black America, the anti-45 movement, or something along those lines. I didn’t get any of that here. Instead, I got a guy at the top of game that had a great opportunity to run light years around the rest of the game, but seemed to be more concerned with just letting everyone else know he was the top of the food chain. Don’t get me wrong – he’s right to say that, but he earned that by not having to tell us all in the most secret and abstract of ways. Instead of lapping everyone three times over, seems like he just reduced his lead over everyone to simple shouting distance. DAMN is a very nice mix of bars, beats, experimentation, trials and tribulations, and confidence, but it IS lacking that furiousness and rebellion that made him Hip-Hop’s current champion.

Nevertheless, Kendrick Lamar IS Hip-Hop’s current champion and this will please pretty much everyone.

Personal Favorite Tracks: DNA, Element, Fear, Duckworth