Kanye West called MBDTF an apology. For what, right? For smoking holes into the economy of American politeness? Or maybe it was for grabbing too much ass and drinking too much Henny and going up on a stage and saying some shit he couldn’t take back. The outrage spread like wildfire. What was, at the dawn of the new decade, quite the snafu, though, is today, just a dustup. The outrage machine that is social media has grown supple, a fat baby crying at the top of its lungs and it constantly needs feeding. People like us are great and sifting through the pork parts of RL to feed it to you, too. In many ways, it can be our jobs. But, I’m thankful. I’m thankful to Justin Charity’s K. Dot article, and I’m grateful for Andreas Hale’s rebuttal. It means we’re talking about things we care about and hope everyone else cares about too. There’s a great deal of humanity in that.
We’re all discussing the gargantuan humanity — the Epic of Gilgamesh level humanity — in Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly. Is it the best album of the year? Is it as good as we all thought it was? Was it just a rehash of old-styled Afrocentric tropes made to great hoopla by the Soulquarians? It doesn’t matter, really. Because a trite examination of its parts leaves no room for the synergy, the metaphysical awakening of its whole. Its messy haired jazz plunges are evolutions of the Soulquarian mission statement, not a regression. Let’s, for a moment, trust our instincts. We heard greatness spill through our speakers. Our minds picked up on the meatier parts at once and left the more complex textures for later, but we ate and ate. We mulled it over and under. It popped into our minds in the shower. The moribund scatting of an emcee wtf seriously crooning “this dick ain’t free?” Absurd.
We listened, despite the strange mixing and mastering, and despite the old-timey sounds, the sax and horn and piano and funk, this time flitting about the room and bouncing off of things instead of the inside of some computer’s matrix. The notes felt like they, themselves, were literally dancing and so were Kendrick’s words and ideas, diving deep into his own pockets and summoning change from thin air. That’s what it felt like. “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” featuring Rapsody felt like rubbing cocoa butter into your skin on an ashy winter morning in Brooklyn. “King Kunta” like blowing into your hands for warmth.
But why is it important? It’s important because it is the most human album of the year. It looks to try and encapsulate the mitosis of a life that is not a parallel happening. This is complicated stuff, this living, this believing. Let us ask ourselves, with real brevity, what is all this? When the best of intentions leads to disastrous results? When the unfairness of a world with overlapping and constantly shifting modalities leaves you with no idea what the right move is? When you are overwhelmed by your own success and your otherness and your “u” and your sadness and your “i” this album will be here for you. When the weight of a decision made that cannot be unmade fills your life with an odor you know you will never un-smell this album will be here for you. It is the rendering of a person pinned open, nerves bare. So, of course, its backdrop is a mixture of two of the most important American art forms ever: Jazz and Hip Hop. “Loving you is complicated,” right? Full bottles clanking happen in both revelry and despair right? This album is here for that. And it’s here to tell you that you’re going to be “Alright.”
Despite the pervasiveness of the virtual worlds we all inhabit, we are still breathing and thinking. We are still brutish at times and nurturing at others and sometimes we are both all at once. Consider the alternative, then. It isn’t necessarily a bad one. K. Dot’s first album gave you a linear story about what it was like to exist in a hood that was not of your own choosing. But he’d chosen. And his fame and wealth have increased a million times fold so what’s the album you make after that? An album that stretches further, maybe. One that shoots for the outer reaches of both the inner and outer worlds of our messy, dumbfounding humanity. For my money, for almost any artist that’s tried to do that, he’s come the closest to succeeding.
Especially when, for all you’ve done and all the sacrifices you’ve made, you’re forced in front of what you’ve alway wanted only to find it wanting. To find that it isn’t everything. To address that, and do it while dragging in almost all of black music into the mix is extraordinary. At least, I hope, we can settle on that.
Andre Grant is an NYC native turned L.A. transplant that has contributed to a few different properties on the web and is now the Features Editor for HipHopDX. He’s also trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot. Follow him on Twitter @drejones.
“a life that is not a parallel happening” what does that mean?
A little too deep huh…
Music is a vehicle that can transport us out of our current environment and circumstance into this “parallel happening”, a life we can not attest to but can still infinitely relate to. It speaks to us. This album is real though, it’s daily life and struggle. It is weakness and failure but also glorious triumph.
At least that is how I understood it and that resonates with me. Just my opinion though*
I honeslty didn’t love the album after first listen. I had to keep it on repeat to discover hidden and underlying meanings. It can go over right over the heads of some folks. Kdot is more akin to a poet and his prose is expressive and at times heavy. I agree that it is the most human as it is the one of the most honest releases in hiphop. Life isnt all gang banging, big asses and fly shit. Good one Dre
Music can allow escape from circumstances even if it is only mentally or music can keep you in the thought it continuously replays in your mind thus over time it can become anthems and lead to habits, norms and actions. If you are raised on a single sound anything outside of that norm and many arent really adventurous enough to not be hurded. I like the album. Love the art of it. And isn’t that what music is…art…expression…feeling. yall dont get tired of the same representation of the black community in hiphop. its not old after damn near two decades. hoods hoes drugs swag dancin and coonin and the youth cant do basic algebra or complete sentences in an interview. Everything for sell and for the cheap. Smart dumb folks…deaf dumb and blind.
Great article Mr.Grant all those analogies were on point.Thank you to Compton Kendrick for saving us with this dope album this year.Tired of all the Waps and Future music.
Great one Dre!
I will admit that I did not like the entire album at first listen. I had to keep it on repeat to get the hidden and underlying meanings behind some tracks. KDot is more akin to a poet. His prose is reflective ofthe struggles of a thinking, feeling human being. It can sometimes fly over the heads of some folk. He is an artist. Hip Hop isnt all about fly shit, fat asses and gang banging. There is more to life than that.
To pimp a butterfly will go down as the best album that i ve listened to along with GKMC, it took me two weeks before i started digesting this album. K.DOT is a genius.
Pull up King Shampz and Azzan “All Hail The King” on Datpiff, they bringing that REAL BOOM BAP!!! Pull up Dead Wrong Records on Soundcloud. They DOPE!!!!! EAST COAST BACK!!!!
best Album since GKMC no joke.. I loved Yela ALbum this year. but Kendrick is on top of the hip hp game for a reason.
Cee-Lo-
As individuals and as a people we are at war
But the majority of my side got they eyes open wide
But still don’t recognize what we fighting fo
I guess that’s what I’m writing for to try to shed some light
But we been in the darkness for so long, don’t know right from wrong
Y’all scared to come near it, you ignore the voice
In your head when you hear it
The enemy is after yo’ spirit but you think it’s all in yo’ mind
You’ll find a lot of the reason we behind
Is because the system is designed to keep our third eyes blind
But not blind in the sense that our other two eyes can’t see
You just end investing quality time in places you don’t even neeed to be
We don’t even know who we are, but the answer ain’t far
Matter of fact its right up under our nose
But the system taught us to keep that book closed
See the reason why he gotta lie and deceive is so
That we won’t act accordingly
To get the blessings we suppose to receive
Yeah it’s true, Uncle Sam wants you to be a devil too
See, he’s jealous because his skin is a curse but what’s worse
is if I put it in a verse y’all listen to some bullshit first
We ain’t natural born killas, we are a spiritual people
God’s chosen few
Think about the slave trade when they had boats with
Thousands of us on board
And we still was praising the Lord now you ready to die
Over a coat, a necklace round your throat, that’s bullshit
Black people ya’ll better realize, we losin, you better fight and die
If you got to get yo’ spirit and mind back and we got to do it together
Goodie Mob means, “The Good Die Mostly Over Bullshit”
You take away one “O” and it will let you know
“God is Every Man of Blackness”
The Lord has spoken thru me and the G-Mo-B!
Damn, and he said that in ’95. We’re still at war 20 years later.
Dope Article, Mr. Grant. 2PAB Was NOT The Album The HipHop Game Expected Following Good Kid. But, Perhaps More Importantly, It Seemed To Be The Album HipHop NEEDED. Especially In A Year Where #BlackLivesMatter, The NWA Biopic Made History As THEE Highest Grossing Black Film EVER, And Terrorism Teeters On The Insidious Brink of Reshaping Our World As It Did Following 9/11. Thankfully, Kendrick Gave Us A Soundtrack For The Struggle. King Kunta Has Officially Been Crowned. Salute The Young King From Compton.
Dude you can’t claim this was ahuman album when Majority of the time Kendrick was talkning about BLACK issues and BLACK POWER. You black people are such hypocrites calling each other FAM and SIS and BROTHER around white people and act civilized but as soon as you are by yourself you go beserk and start calling your sisters thots and tipping black strippers, shoot outs with other black gangs, etc. Get your head out of your ass. White people cannot relate to Kendricks album at all, he had a few good cuts but that Black Power bullshit needs to disappear.