I’ve been hearing for a few years now that Kendrick Lamar is the best major label rapper around, but I have to be honest: I heard his last album and I wasn’t feeling it. But now I get it.
To Pimp a Butterfly is like being beaten senseless by a DJ at four in the morning who loves P-Funk, new power soul, Tribe Called Quest, and MF Doom. It keeps you reeling. A spoken work piece will bump into a jazz riff, and then you get “These Walls,” which could be a 1990s native tongue jam played through a kaleidescope, and it will creep right over a boom bap and step on a race-conscious speech.
Remember when hip hop was different from rap—it was more experimental, less predictable, almost…Revolutionary? No?
Well then check this out and feel it.
