What We're Listening To: "To Pimp A Butterfly" by Kendrick Lamar

Following the success of "Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City", the expectations for Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar to meet the prowess of his hometown-inspired LP were tangible. However, very few could have guessed that his next commercial effort would turn out the way 2015's "To Pimp A Butterfly" did.

In 2015, Lamar trades generally minimal production and bangers like "Swimming Pools" and "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" for influences from Jazz, Funk, and old-school R&B. This starts early as the beginning of "Wesley's Theory" is a faded-in sample of an obscure Boris Gardiner song (have you ever heard of that person? I had not). This is followed immediately by an eerie feeling that the recording was captured in the Parliament starship, and George Clinton and Thundercat are brilliant here. Kendrick critiques rampant spending and mismanagement of money and fame that he appears to perceive in the culture around him. This track's mojo bleeds into one of the most entertaining songs on the album, "King Kunta", a "Slim Shady"-esque march where Lamar criticizes plagiarism and ghostwriting in modern hip-hop. The proverbial Greek chorus of female voices on these first two tracks are fun, and the bass is truly the star of the backing tracks early on.

Kendrick moves away from the style of the first segment of the album both in his delivery and musically on "Institutionalized", "These Walls", and "u". These songs introduce in a general sense the album's two main thematic pillars: political issues in black culture and borderline self-shaming introspection. Lamar paints himself as not only a harsh critic of his own community, something that is both incredibly refreshing and indicative of the artist's intelligence, but also a harsh critic of himself. Kendrick contrasts his criticisms of the white establishment and the injustices of American society with the injustices his neighbors commit amongst themselves. He raps about feeling guilty for not helping a stranger on "How Much a Dollar Cost" and black on black crime on "The Blacker the Berry". The album ends with a "live" version of the album's first single, "i", which immediately rolls into "Mortal Man", a track that sees the conclusion of the poem Kendrick breaks into segments and recites in between songs throughout the album. Lamar then proceeds to interview a posthumous Tupac Shakur; a move that both captures Lamar's exceptional creativity as well as his respect for who Tupac was and what he believed in.

To say that every moment on this album was deliberate feels like an understatement. Kendrick Lamar incorporates so many overarching themes and uses an assortment of musical influences and delivery styles and cadences to keep the listener's ears fresh during this 78-minute endeavor. Lamar chooses to shun convention and rap about things that matter, rather than rap about what have become the vile touchstones of his genre (women, money, drugs, violence). This album's messages are such that you have to listen to the album in its entirety to fully digest their meaning, and Kendrick Lamar is such a brilliant artist on "To Pimp A Butterfly" that for the repeat listener this does not feel like a chore at all.

There are few albums that are truly genre-defining, and a lot of the time it takes a few years for an album to be deemed as such. What Kendrick Lamar has done in 2015 not only serves as a reference point for what is going on in today's society, but he has created a new standard for all future hip-hop albums to come.

Kendrick Lamar had the Best Album of 2015.

Rating: 10/10

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