![]() Lamar has always been a fluent technician, if an insular and anomic presence. (It has the faintest echo of Clipse’s “When the Last Time.”) They continue on the next song, “Alright,” produced partly by Pharrell Williams, and the closest thing this album has to a traditional single. The scrambling saxophones on “u” - by Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington and Adam Turchin - are rousing. Dilla, as on “Complexion (A Zulu Love),” which also features the classicist Pete Rock. It’s full of neo-soul, regular old soul, jazz and funk, and the songs bubble with a furious spontaneity. Musically, this album is a jolt of the old. Dre as life coach on “Wesley’s Theory” (“Anybody can get it/The hard part is keeping it”) Snoop Dogg as the Slick Rick-like narrator of “Institutionalized” and Tupac Shakur, resurrected for an eerie mock interview on “Mortal Man.” While he has paved the way for the resurgence of Compton as a creative hotbed, with rappers like YG and Vince Staples making nouveau gangster rap, he is heavy with the burdens of yesterday. And he likes bending his voice into unexpected shapes: On “u,” he raps in a scarred, cracking voice, between tears and aggression. Lamar has access to, tries to capitalize on it. He likes playing characters: On “Institutionalized,” he takes on the role of a friend who, when exposed to the new world Mr. Lamar has at best been a reluctant star, and also the rare artist who has become more interesting while in the crucible of fame, who hasn’t smoothed out his rough edges. ![]() ![]() That’s what you’re telling me, penitentiary would only hire meĬhurch me with your fake prophesizing that I’ma be just another slave in my head It’s evident that I’m irrelevant to society On “For Free? (Interlude),” he’s indignant, lashing out at a society that gave him only the barest essentials and dared him to thrive: “Like I never made ends meet eatin’ your leftovers and raw meat.” On “The Blacker the Berry,” he returns time and again to a wounded question - “You hate me, don’t you?” - and calls out the structures of power that suggest that black lives don’t matter: It’s about ethics and community responsibility, about white terror and black resilience, about self-doubt and self-punishment, about melting under the klieg lights of fame.Īt its best, it’s a howling work of black protest art on par with Amiri Baraka’s incendiary play “Dutchman,” or David Hammons’s moving decapitated hoodie “In the Hood” (seen most recently on the cover of Claudia Rankine’s poetry collection “Citizen: An American Lyric”) - works rooted in both pride and fear. Lamar’s increasing confidence and increasing dissatisfaction. The album takes on bold, huge themes, reflective of Mr. Somehow, in “To Pimp a Butterfly,” he does both. Listen to some of the best new recordings here. Classical Music: 2021 was a year of reawakening for the art form.Jazz Albums: Even the big-statement albums this year had a feeling of intense closeness.Pop Albums: Recordings with big feelings and room for catharsis made the most powerful connections.Best Songs: A posthumous political statement and a superstar’s 10-minute redo are among the 66 best tracks of 2021.It’s a work about living under constant racialized surveillance and how that can lead to many types of internal monologues, some empowered, some self-loathing.įrom Lil Nas X to Mozart to Esperanza Spalding here is what we loved listening to this year. His follow up, “To Pimp a Butterfly” (TDE/Aftermath/Interscope), which in a surprise was released just before midnight on Sunday - is more brazen, more preoccupied with social politics and more revealing about the struggles of Mr. city,” a long read about growing up in Compton, Calif., sold more than a million copies, a rare platinum hip-hop album in parched times, an exceptional exception. His 2012 major label debut album, “ good kid, m.A.A.d. He prefers narratives to anthems, verses to choruses, intricate feelings to intricate rhymes (though he has those, too).Īnd yet despite those things - or maybe because of them - he has fashioned a following, and a huge one at that - one that could make him a potential change agent for the whole genre. His concerns are personal, local, interior. Which is why Kendrick Lamar is the most ornery of modern rap stars. It is, by and large, polite - a warm and welcoming host. Broadly speaking, it has reframed its concerns as universal, not specific. It’s still a privileged space for black expression, but has also become extremely conscious of everyone else listening in. Calling mainstream hip-hop a series of compromises is unfair, but the genre is far from where it was even a decade ago.
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