Always Bet on Kendrick Lamar
The Compton wordsmith comes back with another album and freezes the game in a standstill.
This week, Vince Staples went on the record and crowned Kendrick Lamar “greatest rapper alive.” The comment, predictably, caught some heat online, majority of which I wouldn’t be surprised to find out emanated from Toronto. Here’s the thing though. Vince was not wrong. Kendrick Lamar is the greatest rapper alive. Kendrick Lamar comes in at no. 1 and then we leave 2 through 5 empty out of sheer respect.
As I sit here on what is my 15th playthrough of DAMN. I can’t quite put my finger down on what it is that makes DAMN. so good and as eclipsing of anything else released around it as GOOD kid MAD City and To Pimp a Butterfly were. Kendrick Lamar’s albums exist in a vacuum where everything else is irrelevant. His music feels like an exercise in temperance from everything modern rap and yet somehow very indicative of what the genre is right now.
DAMN. is not going to be as polarizing as To Pimp A Butterfly. DAMN. is Kendrick rapping at his purest, fastest, most vicious. Listening to DAMN. (DNA. in particular) makes me feel that if the Raptors started me we could win the NBA Finals. Listening to DAMN. makes me forget literally everything that came out in the past two months and that will come out in the next two. DAMN is a time capsule that perfectly preserves modern culture and rap in one package. That and raw rhymes that make you want to go back and scribble them down and use them as tweets in replies to all the haters. To Pimp a Butterfly was an artistic de-tour to establish Kendrick more than a rapper, an artist, a story teller and a voice of a culture. DAMN. is a not-so-subtle reminder to watch who the fuck you’re talking to.
Since this is inevitable. Let’s get the comparison out of the way. DAMN. is not More Life. More Life is not DAMN. Drake is a trend-hopper. Kendrick is a trend setter. More Life is fun, poppy and enjoyable for a summer at the cottage when you need carefree background music you can forget the words too but still be able to predict what they are. It’s perfectly good for what it is. It’s fun even. Enjoyable. Something you will listen to at the club. On the drive. A collection of songs curated for your enjoyment however you want to consume them. DAMN. is calculated. From the Heart Pt. 4 to Humble to the whole DAMN. (I know, I hate myself too) album. Every song has it’s own cadence and flow. It’s own story. Every song can stand on it’s own as something you can listen to and enjoy. It makes sense. But when you bring them all together, in true Kendrick fashion it becomes an tour de force. It’s not as fun as more life. But it doesn’t have to be. Kendrick has a clear message that’s rooted in our current frustration with race relation. With the world. With president Trump. You need to listen to DAMN. you want to listen to More Life.
Okay, let me take this a step further. There is a story of when Kanye first Daft Punk and was all like “whatever,” before later sampling them on Stronger and fronting like he invented the sound. I can’t think of a better analogy of the way Drake treats other cultures. From trap, to pop-tunes, to Caribbean flow to now grime. He hears it. He likes it. He uses. One may argue that he puts on a music or a genre, but where is the line of demarcation between borrowing and straight up biting? How many albums in? Kendrick pays homages all over his album. There are two Marvin Gaye samples on either end of the album. The first one feels almost accidental, an artistic decision. When you hear it the second time, songs later… It hits. Kendrick’s respect for music lies deeper than to borrow a few lines. He digs back to where he came from, where we are and where we’re going. He treats music like art.
Second point, even more contemplative for your head-top. One, leave it to Kendrick with the best subtweet of 2017 to put Drake’s ex on a song called LOYALTY. BUT, consider every song Rhianna is on with Drake. It’s a flirty dance jam where Rhianna is present with one purpose — to show us how much of a man Drake is and how much she wants him. She kills it on LOYALTY. Kendrick has her there as his equal. The post Anti Rhianna, the post her best album Rhianna. The rude girl of rap Rhianna and it’s goddamn beautiful. Kendrick isn’t scared to be overshadowed by the culture. He is the culture.
Anyways, back to DAMN.
Kendrick’s albums are more than albums. He’s perfectly in tune with the times and while every song goes extra hard, each playthrough leaves a trail in your head. Something that will ferment and require contemplation later. Like using the Fox News sample on the very first song of his actual album. When I heard that, I had to turn off all the lights in my house, close the windows, turn off the music and just sit still for five minutes. That’s the transcending beauty of a Kendrick Lamar album. He doesn’t laboriously try to explain it to you so much that you miss the point of each song. The whole album is the point. The tone. The message. The lyrics. It’s all there. All you have to do is listen.
Kendrick doesn’t bother to adopt to what the trend is. He does not subvert his music to whatever gets you moving in the club. The banger du jour. Instead he comes through the door, shotgun cocked John Wick style and tells you exactly what’s hot. He doesn’t regress to trends and every other emcee but keeps in a lane entirely to himself, headed full-speed in the opposite direction to everyone else. His flow on the album hits peaks and valleys. He croons, sings, flows, screams and rebels all across 14 tracks. He has no style. He is the style.
And that’s what makes Kendrick Lamar and DAMN. so fun. You never know what to expect. Ever since GKMC K-Dot has been in a playground of his own, building sandcastles while everyone else is fucking around on the monkey bars down the street. He doesn’t come out to play as often, but even when he does he has a message to deliver.
At the present point, he is the only living artist I can think of who can deliver an album that serves both as a social X-Ray of our culture and politics in time and space (time: whatever it is right now; space: 2017) but make it sound fun, enjoyable, overwhelming, emotional and down right spiritual all in one verse.
Goddamn you. Goddamn me. Goddamn us. Goddamn we. Goddamn us all.
DAMN.
