Kendrick Lamar is no doubt one of the best Mc’s in the game. Some might say he’s one of the best artists out right now.- Justin Walton
Kendrick Lamar is no doubt one of the best Mc’s in the game. Some might say he’s one of the best artists out right now. Formally known as K-dot, Kendrick Lamar is a rapper,songwriter,activist,and poet from Compton, California. When Kendrick dropped his first studio album Section.80 in April 12,2011, the rapper started to gain more buzz around the industry collabing with artist such as Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, The Game, and LA’s finest, Snoop Dogg. A couple years later, in 2012, Kendrick released his first album underneath Interscope records called good kid m.A.A.d city, with singles featuring on the US Billboard Top 200. Three years later he released his album To Pimp a Butterfly which earned him his title as “the best rapper alive from Noisey.” On this album Lamar talks about social justice issues in his community, and how America views and treats black people. With his deep poetic lyrics, along with his jazzy funky instrumentals, To Pimp a Butterfly won a Grammy for Best Rap Album of the year at the 58th Grammy’s.
Lamar’s latest album DAMN was released in 2017 mid-April, and went viral just after Lamar’s team put it out on all platforms. DAMN is Lamar’s fourth studio album and has already been named one of the best albums of 2017 by complex news. This album is a reflection of what Kendrick is going through as a person, attributing all of his emotions and feelings into the album.
Kendrick´s DAMN album has only been out for 7 months and is already the highest selling album of 2017, and has reached double platinum, which is his first double platinum album ever.
Storytelling has always been one of Lamar’s great skills, and is a skill he continues to use throughout this project. Lamar opens the album with a song called “Blood.” “Blood” is the shortest song on the album and is probably one of the most complex..The song starts out with a four bar stanza asking, “Is it wickedness? Is it weakness?You decide, are we gonna die?”, and then leads into a short story, “So I was taking a walk the other day”, which returns on the final track, giving the album a mystifying feeling that makes the listener think. Something even more mystifying is the old blind woman and her words to Lamar in this song. “You’ve lost…” she says with a long pause, “your life!” A gunshot occurs. Lamar was shot by the blind woman. Leading into the next song “DNA.”
“DNA” is a representation of Lamar’s blackness and pride, but under a different context from most of the songs on To pimp a Butterfly. On this song he is passionately responding to the people who have tried to speak about Lamar’s race and hip-hop culture, such as Fox News’anchor Geraldo Rivera, who was sampled in “DNA” as saying “This is why I say hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years”. Lamar responds to Rivera on the second verse with, “Tell me something,you motherf****rs can’t tell me nothin, I’d rather die than to listen to you,” and then starts to flex a little,listing his accomplishments.Just like the whole album, “DNA,” is really about himself,his community, and what he saw growing up.
Not long after Lamar released DAMN, fans went straight to analyzing each song, trying to find different secrets planted throughout the album. One of the biggest hypotheses fans came up with is that DAMN can be listened in reverse order, and still have it tell the same story. A couple months later, Lamar confirmed that hypothesis in an interview on MTV explaining why he likes the elements from the reverse version more than the the original version. “I think like a week after the album came out, fans realized you can play the album backwards,” he said. “It still plays as a full story and even has a better rhythm to it. It’s one of my favorite rhythms and tempos within the album. It's something we definitely premeditated while we are in the studio.”.
This album is a must listen from top to bottom to understand the full story. Or from bottom to top, which will allow us to see both sides of Kendrick and let us figure out other surprises within the album.
Lamar’s latest album DAMN was released in 2017 mid-April, and went viral just after Lamar’s team put it out on all platforms. DAMN is Lamar’s fourth studio album and has already been named one of the best albums of 2017 by complex news. This album is a reflection of what Kendrick is going through as a person, attributing all of his emotions and feelings into the album.
Kendrick´s DAMN album has only been out for 7 months and is already the highest selling album of 2017, and has reached double platinum, which is his first double platinum album ever.
Storytelling has always been one of Lamar’s great skills, and is a skill he continues to use throughout this project. Lamar opens the album with a song called “Blood.” “Blood” is the shortest song on the album and is probably one of the most complex..The song starts out with a four bar stanza asking, “Is it wickedness? Is it weakness?You decide, are we gonna die?”, and then leads into a short story, “So I was taking a walk the other day”, which returns on the final track, giving the album a mystifying feeling that makes the listener think. Something even more mystifying is the old blind woman and her words to Lamar in this song. “You’ve lost…” she says with a long pause, “your life!” A gunshot occurs. Lamar was shot by the blind woman. Leading into the next song “DNA.”
“DNA” is a representation of Lamar’s blackness and pride, but under a different context from most of the songs on To pimp a Butterfly. On this song he is passionately responding to the people who have tried to speak about Lamar’s race and hip-hop culture, such as Fox News’anchor Geraldo Rivera, who was sampled in “DNA” as saying “This is why I say hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years”. Lamar responds to Rivera on the second verse with, “Tell me something,you motherf****rs can’t tell me nothin, I’d rather die than to listen to you,” and then starts to flex a little,listing his accomplishments.Just like the whole album, “DNA,” is really about himself,his community, and what he saw growing up.
Not long after Lamar released DAMN, fans went straight to analyzing each song, trying to find different secrets planted throughout the album. One of the biggest hypotheses fans came up with is that DAMN can be listened in reverse order, and still have it tell the same story. A couple months later, Lamar confirmed that hypothesis in an interview on MTV explaining why he likes the elements from the reverse version more than the the original version. “I think like a week after the album came out, fans realized you can play the album backwards,” he said. “It still plays as a full story and even has a better rhythm to it. It’s one of my favorite rhythms and tempos within the album. It's something we definitely premeditated while we are in the studio.”.
This album is a must listen from top to bottom to understand the full story. Or from bottom to top, which will allow us to see both sides of Kendrick and let us figure out other surprises within the album.