175. Kendrick Lamar, "DAMN."

 


This is a fascinating bookend with yesterday's Fear of a Black Planet because both albums show the very best of hip hop at the time of their release and man, they could not be more different.  Both albums are great, but I'm going to tip my hand as an old guy and say that I Liked The Older Stuff Better.

I am not saying I don't like this album because I did, quite a bit!  There is no question that Kendrick is one of the best, if not the best, rappers working today.  He has a distinctive, slightly laconic voice and absolutely has a way with lyrics.  From "DNA.":

I got, I got, I got, I got
Loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA
Cocaine quarter piece, got war and peace inside my DNA
I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA
I got hustle though, ambition, flow, inside my DNA
I was born like this, since one like this
Immaculate conception
I transform like this, perform like this
Was Yeshua's new weapon
I don't contemplate, I meditate, then off your fucking head
This that put-the-kids-to-bed

Whereas Public Enemy was about oppression writ large, Kendrick is concerned with how that oppression plays out on the small stage, on the individual level.  He grew up in Compton and experienced the struggle firsthand.  And he lays it all out on this album, an unflinching look into his life and his story.

In contrast to the thickly layered sound we heard yesterday, musically this album is fairly sparse, in keeping with the style today.  On "Humble," for example, there's the drum track, and an ominous piano punctuated occasionally by a high siren sound.  But it lets the vocals stand out, and with a flow as complex as Kendrick's, I can see the point.  

It's weird to say the centerpiece of the album is the last song, but maybe "DUCKWORTH." is, an intricate story of a dealer whom Kendrick's father befriended.  That dealer would go on to become the head of the label that signed Kendrick:

You take two strangers and put 'em in random predicaments
Give 'em a soul so they can make their own choices and live with it
Twenty years later, them same strangers, you make 'em meet again
Inside recording studios where they reapin' their benefits
Then you start remindin' them about that chicken incident
Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence?
Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin' life
While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight

Damn, indeed.  Also, this is the first album we've seen that won the Pulitzer Prize for music.  And it might not even be his best album?  Damn.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? It won a Pulitzer!

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