Some Thoughts on “To Pimp a Butterfly”

March 19th 2015

Musically, To Pimp a Butterfly is a melting pot of black influences — direct references to 2Pac, a George Clinton cameo, Snoop Dogg, the unrestrained jazz and funk influences that run as an undercurrent throughout the album. It’s a musical Kendrick’s love letter to his community, infused with his own inner conflict and conviction.

Culturally, I think it’s no coincidence that it comes on the heels of D’Angelo’s Black Messiah. The two represent different approaches to the same issues that have come to the forefront in the past six months — Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and police brutality — and I think that these approaches reflect the artists themselves. D’Angelo famously took 14 years to release the followup to Voodoo, despite playing tracks from it as early as 2008. This shows his perfectionism: the album itself is a carefully constructed meditation that deals with what’s built up inside of him in a very deliberate manner.

The contrast that Kendrick presents is what makes To Pimp a Butterfly so compelling. It aims to do justice and pay tribute to his ancestry, but he’s so full of anger and internal contradiction with his place in the world that there are moments of rage that end up inevitably leaking out. All the darkest and most personal tracks (here’s looking at “u”) are solo efforts without any features — they’re unrestrained outpourings of emotion. This contrasts with the tracks that show deliberation, with the aforementioned funk and RnB elements and a host of culturally significant features.

This juxtaposition is what makes To Pimp a Butterfly not an album to experience — there’s no room for myself in these shoes. The portrait of this man is too complete. I can only hope to understand.