Courtesy EW.com
“I met a little boy that resembled my features,” Kendrick Lamar raps in the third verse of “Momma” from his latest studio effort, “To Pimp A Butterfly.”
His snapshot of an exchange with a young fan during a tour date in South Africa last year reveals the struggle with blackness that rules this album’s 16 tracks. The child’s “nappy afro” and “ashy, black ankles” bring the child’s physical attributes close to Lamar’s memories of childhood. Cultural, historical and economic identifiers keep them separate, however.
In a search to find the right words to connect black experience, Lamar looks both outward and inward.
His battle with identity plays out for a stark, heartfelt and emotional 79-minute stretch. However, Lamar creates the illusion that time is malleable.
Most songs are made up of multiple, distinct movements, skits, interludes and occasional outbursts. So much is going on that Lamar effectively masks the transition between songs.
The instrumentation feels so vibrant and dynamic that Lamar throws the concept of rapping over “beats” out the window almost completely. Horns blare in the background. Voices wail. Pianos clang. Session musicians, such as bassist and co-producer Thundercat, shift tempos and moods mid-song. Kendrick himself reacts as he raps, as if he has no control of the direction the album takes.
Lamar’s greatest leap from his breakout album, “Good Kid M.A.A.D. City,” is his sharper and more mature social commentary.
“From Compton to Congress, set tripping all around,” Lamar says on “Hood Politics,” comparing bipartisan allegiances to the gang affiliations that divide neighborhoods in his hometown.
On “Institutionalized,” he identifies materialism as the grandchild of the American colonial slave economy. On “The Blacker The Berry,” he unapologetically shoves his appreciation for black attributes in the face of an imaginary adversary.
Lamar’s lyrics, however, don’t only point to outside evils.
With the closest thing to a guest verse on the project coming in the form of an appearance by Jamaican dancehall star Assassin, Kendrick contorts his voice with effects and filters. He appears throughout the tracklist much like a character throughout the acts in a play. The triumphant Kendrick found on lead single “i” feels like a different artist from the Kendrick that shows up on its antithesis “u.”
On the former, Kendrick bounces airily, chanting, “I love myself,” in an upbeat tone that feels like a spiritual successor to Pharrell William’s super-smash “Happy.” On the latter, Kendrick’s infatuation with his accomplishments turns venomous and his lyrics become vulnerable.
“Loving you is complicated,” he screams over a haunting bass line.
He hollers insults and criticisms at himself before finally cracking his own confidence. Not only does the beat change, but, also, Lamar’s taunting screams morph into weeping. Through his tears he continues to attack his own character, “I know you’re irresponsible, selfish, in denial, can’t help it/ Your trials and tribulations a burden, everyone felt it.”
Rappers rarely reveal such honesty, and Kendrick acknowledges this fact.
“That was one of the hardest songs I had to write,” he told “Rolling Stone” in a recent cover story. “There’s some very dark moments in there. All my insecurities and selfishness and letdowns. That shit is depressing as a motherfucker. But it helps, though.”
Frequently, he pauses in the album to revisit a poem that offers an additional perspective on the ills that coincide with the egomaniacal rap persona.
“I remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence/ Sometimes, I did the same,” he begins each time.
At the conclusion of the album’s closer, “Mortal Man,” Kendrick recites the poem one last time for deceased rapper Tupac Shakur who then “interacts” with Lamar via clips from a rare Swedish radio interview. The conversation is a hair-raising moment that clarifies Lamar’s intent to be viewed in the light of rap’s most pivotal figures.
Shakur’s place on the album is put into perspective through his music’s connection to black liberation during the age of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. His words feel eerily similar to the language of frustration found on television news and social media feeds today.
Kendrick’s music similarly holds a mirror up to the racial disparities in America in the wake of the turmoil in Ferguson. Kendrick reads one more piece for Pac.
Unfortunately, the otherworldly communication between them drops, leaving us with only Kendrick Lamar to navigate through the issue of race in our society.
