**Official Kendrick Lamar Thread 4th Studio Album ''DAMN.''Out Now**

[skurrtskurrt29]

TPAB just wasn't for everybody (literally). I felt that **** off the strength of just being black and growing up on those throwback sounds and subject matter (really any black person should, but I digress). If you went into it expecting another GKMC then I can see how it's not for you.

It's like the second season of The Wire Hate it or love it, it's necessary and it's real and not everybody is going to understand the importance behind it.

 

[abematic]

View media item 2407318
Woke up 10 minutes late last night but still caught it.
Stayed up til 220am to watch it and went to work at 7am. Dope but will watch again.

His movie set was mad dope!

 

[SoleByThePound]

high horse?

let me clear this up

i didnt mean his lyrics or concepts are too advanced for most of his fans

i was more so getting at the production and instrumentation on TPAB

he recorded it with The Isley Brothers, George Clinton, Terrace Martin, Thundercat and such

the production and beats are what draw most listeners to records

TPAB production pulled from the legends of funk, soul, and hip hop

Dr Dre had him recording songs and verses in analog just to have that old school mo town record sound

he had a full band play live straight through songs which is hardly ever done in music anymore because we have technology and programs to cut copy paste drag and drop.

these are the things that hold albums up over the years like Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill or Aquemini

kids today over look most of that stuff

thats why I said TPAB was musically too advance for most of his fans not lyrically

Co mf'n sign!

 

[str8drop]

the XXX into mAAd City transition last night was special

once all the kinks are ironed out and the set list is locked in they're gonna have an incredible tour set

Heard from one of the homies Kenny going on tour w Travis Scott this summer

 

[EddieDoyers]

the XXX into mAAd City transition last night was special

once all the kinks are ironed out and the set list is locked in they're gonna have an incredible tour set

Heard from one of the homies Kenny going on tour w Travis Scott this summer

if that's true, I'm in homie

 

[robinvandamn]

 

 

the XXX into mAAd City transition last night was special

once all the kinks are ironed out and the set list is locked in they're gonna have an incredible tour set

Heard from one of the homies Kenny going on tour w Travis Scott this summer

if that's true, I'm in homie

might get one some roadie **** and hit up a couple dates 

 

[All Ready]

love is a beautiful song man

damn

 

[SoleByThePound]

love is a beautiful song man

damn

It's one of my favorite songs on the album. Hopefully he makes a video for it.

 

[VARNELL HILL]

TPAB just wasn't for everybody (literally). I felt that **** off the strength of just being black and growing up on those throwback sounds and subject matter (really any black person should, but I digress). If you went into it expecting another GKMC then I can see how it's not for you.

It's like the second season of The Wire

Hate it or love it, it's necessary and it's real and not everybody is going to understand the importance behind it.

I appreciate it because he took a risk which is what art is supposed to be about. He went totally left in a era where dudes play it safe (for the most part). The only other artist in the last decade who set out to make something completely new with every album is Kanye. 

 

[SoleByThePound]

TPAB just wasn't for everybody (literally). I felt that **** off the strength of just being black and growing up on those throwback sounds and subject matter (really any black person should, but I digress). If you went into it expecting another GKMC then I can see how it's not for you.

It's like the second season of The Wire Hate it or love it, it's necessary and it's real and not everybody is going to understand the importance behind it.

I appreciate it because he took a risk which is what art is supposed to be about. He went totally left in a era where dudes play it safe (for the most part). The only other artist in the last decade who set out to make something completely new with every album is Kanye. 

Well put fellas, repped!

 

[Ingenious Bastard]

His Coachella set was dope. I don't know about you guys, but when I watch a live performance, I appreciate the music even more.

 

[brendasdeadbaby]

I appreciate it because he took a risk which is what art is supposed to be about. He went totally left in a era where dudes play it safe (for the most part). The only other artist in the last decade who set out to make something completely new with every album is Kanye. 

Take this rep. And that's why I respect both Kendrick and Kanye for taking risks and succeeding imo when everybody else sounds the same

 

[flatbushfiyah23]

TPAB just wasn't for everybody (literally). I felt that **** off the strength of just being black and growing up on those throwback sounds and subject matter (really any black person should, but I digress). If you went into it expecting another GKMC then I can see how it's not for you.

It's like the second season of The Wire Hate it or love it, it's necessary and it's real and not everybody is going to understand the importance behind it.

This is a great analogy regarding TPAB. I love TPAB and the second season of The Wire. Many people hated on that season but you are right that it was necessary to the narrative of the greatest show of all-time. TPAB is an essential part of the narrative and I agree the sound isn't for everyone but people trashing it is unbelievable to me.

 

[jf04]

TPAB is a masterpiece. Album was definitely layered, and it's one that's till this day, I listen to all the way through. I've learned to approach Kendrick's albums with no expectation of the sound or direction. It's worked out thus far. I can see why a lot of people didn't like TPAB. The sound is nothing like what's been in the mainstream for years. This new album is beyond dope. I have it right behind TPAB as of now.

 

[abematic]

Every time I listen to FEEL, One Mic comes to mind.

 

[jc619er]

This is the album I've been wanting from him. Everything he's done in the past has been great and I highly respect it but for some reason they've never had lots of replay value for me. I don't find myself going back to them. But this album, man I can't stop listening to it. DAMN is his pinnacle for me.

 

[GaBeGRaMz]

Album fire.

 

[suavamente]

This review so on point

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

I resent Justin Charity of The Ringer for having the capacity to recall anything Kendrick Lamar did before 2011's Section.80, because if he hadn't made reference to Kendrick Lamar's (to some) inexplicable love for Lil' Wayne I would be drawing so many more comparisons to Lamar's mostly terrible 2009 mixtape C4. For those unaware, a brief recap: from 2005 to 2009, Lil' Wayne was the most exciting thing in rap. What started with a feti****ation of Cam'ron's work on Purple Haze  among Pitchfork writers blew out into a full blown orgy of dramatic prose hellbent on imbuing "my new drop is berry, watermelon, plum" (Wayne, "Live from 504") with the depth of Homer's Odyssey on every internet-centric indie rock outlet. It is devastating to me, listening to DAMN., just how far from mimetic cultural memory the Carter III  era has faded.

So, again for those unaware, C4  is Kendrick Lamar's longtime partner Dave Free gaining access to all the beats from that album, plus Jay-Z's "99 Problems" and some other loosies, and trying to make their own Carter III  from the cadavers. On paper, this [air quotes]only[/air quotes] sounds like a bad idea because Lamar was a mostly unknown actor on the world stage at this point, a troublingly awkward songwriter, and perhaps most importantly not Lil' Wayne, Taker of Beats. Do not think time has been kind to this record; you will dissolve into the aether upon the very hope of such a thing.

But. But. This is also to say that Kendrick did not start out as a storytelling rapper, or a highbrow rapper, or a rapper at all concerned with "bringing real rap back" or connecting the old with the new. Lamar has been open in the past about To Pimp a Butterfly's sound having far more to do with the musicians he hired to work on it than the aspirations he had going into those sessions, and it always seemed clear to me that Lamar guesting on tracks with artists on as wide a spectrum as Travi$ Scott to Maroon 5 was an implicit reference to the days when he remade "Mrs. Officer" as "Famous Pipe Game" and sang, horribly off-key, "slam my wee-wee wee-wee wee-wee (like a pornstar)." One of the greatest rappers of our or any generation, indeed. Kendrick Lamar's story is of an artist surrounded by other great artists and building on their greatness to find his own greatness within. Or, an artist who got distracted from making his Lights Out  or Tha Carter  by special circumstances.

"BLOOD." is sort of mean in the sense that it doesn't let the listener just listen to DAMN.  on its own terms; by nodding to the Kendrick Lamar known worldwide as some kind of oracle for the times with this spoken word intro, it's hard to get ready for his jokey stabs at Drake ("ELEMENT."), Kanye West/Rich Homie Quan/Young Thug ("GOD.") and Lil' Wayne ("HUMBLE.") songs. "BLOOD." makes it really easy to hear the back-masking and references to religion and conclude Kendrick is (was?) releasing a companion album on Easter Sunday (a day previous as of this writing). "BLOOD." makes it difficult to recognize that "DNA." is as much Spaceghostpurrp by way of KRS-One as any one message, song or anthem, and hard to reconcile all the artistic collages to come are not necessarily part of a bigger picture other than Lamar's portrait. That's not to say that "DNA." is not pure insanity; I'm not sure any single moment in music this year will feel as visceral as the entirety of this song's second half. But his focus on heritage and history on this track is supposed to, I believe, let you know Kendrick is going to wander slightly unfocused through his past and make good on it.

Californians often like to remind people that Digable Planets weren't the only MCs making true free association fashionable in the early-90s while pointing to Aceyalone and his Project Blowed crew, so leave it to Okayplayer poster Original Juice to point out the similarities to Aceyalone's mid-to-late 90s style of focusing on a specific word or sound and crafting a song around it. "Huh", "yah", "uh, "ugh", "raw" are all sounds that define songs here as much as the content of Lamar's verses. Lamar nods at Juvenile's "Ha", forever in a cage match with "Make 'Em Say Ugh" for late-90s rap single most defined by a single noise refereed by every song you remember only for Birdman making his bird noise adlib.

The song where that happens, "ELEMENT.", is a lost Wu-Tang Forever  beat (again, Kendrick sees you, Drake) looped into a dosey-doe with some lost Missy Elliott concept record about violence as sexuality. It's funny and weird and reminds me of the Kendrick at the start of this decade who was coming into his own as a rapper but reached for clever turns of phrase frequently. Like most of this record, it's nice to hear him plainly and confidently do old things better than he used to. "LUST." is, alternately, just Andre 3000's "Vibrate" with an awkward hook ("let me put the head in" that both recalls C4  Lamar in unfriendly ways and reveals, to this writer's extreme pleasure, just how much Lamar has grown in ability and confidence as an artist. It's Kendrick Lamar's take on another dude's song, and it's worse, and that makes DAMN.  a reminder of Kendrick Lamar's sentience. He will fall some day, as all heroes do. But, for the few long, longtime listeners, it's also fun to hear that Kendrick isn't a horrific mess at this kind of thing anymore.

DAMN.  is far from a death sentence for Lamar, but it does force the public to concede Kendrick Lamar will likely do whatever he wants to as an artist from here on out. Despite the uncut raw aesthetic of its artistic direction and titling conventions, DAMN.  is actually a pop record with a Rihanna duet that only side-steps expectations by making Rihanna dressing rather than the cake itself. It stunt casts "U2" (it's just Bono, c'mon) on a Public Enemy tribute and makes that work, recreates the manic energy of "A Milli" over a beat far less people will find objectionable ("HUMBLE.", and it sacrifices much of that prior song's danger in doing so) and features several references to luxury vehicles Lamar's biggest fans will likely never sit behind the wheel of. It features "PRIDE.", a song that would've felt like satisfactory album filler on Section.80  but understandably can leave those late to the game confused about this D'Angelo by way of Andre 3000 mood piece. "PRIDE.", after all, is primarily boring.

DAMN.  is a very good album, and when he does the thing you want him to do ("FEAR.", right?) it's more proof that Kendrick Lamar has come such a very long way from his beginnings as the young kid in his crew. He can just casually toss a song like that, or "XXX.", or "DNA.", off into an otherwise far more massively palatable experience. In some ways, this makes DAMN.  a far more impressive feat than his past three projects; despite a confrontational appearance, this is easily his most inclusive release. DAMN.  is the album Lamar needed to make at this point in his career. In a worst case scenario, this is his Lethal Injection, and Lamar never again recalls how to manifest the rage of his hungrier days. DAMN.  is the album we should have expected after Lamar released that drunken video in defense of Lil' Wayne despite the rapper's abhorrent batting average over the past decade. The album we should've expected after his last one had critics breathlessly wondering whether any rapper had ever been better than this single 27-year old ("when I was 27, I became accustomed to more fear").

And thus I'm good with "LOVE." reincarnating a vibe from Kendrick we haven't necessarily heard since the hotly debated "No Makeup", if not slightly more recent "Poetic Justice". I'm very down  for the Lamar presented on "HUMBLE." because, uh, look at my last.fm stats some time. "DNA.", again, is definitive and revelatory and platitudinous beyond measure. "XXX." not only works, it may ultimately be what this record is best remembered for. At the very least, it's the most exciting political record since anything from Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music, and I'll say it here that it's incredible the two most radical tracks on this album are attributed to hitmaker Mike Will. "DUCKWORTH." is Kendrick doing Last Song on the Album Drake on his terms, telling a truly captivating story about how he came to be the head dog at Top Dawg Entertainment in the first place by way of a chance encounter between his father and Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith decades ago (much credit due for the way his engineers and Danny Keyz weave three distinct 9th Wonder beats into a coherent whole, as well).

DAMN.  is a reset button, not the harbinger of some Easter-themed concept on life and death that exposes Kendrick Lamar as hip-hop's Last Great Christian (in fact, it surprisingly reveals he considers himself a Black Israelite now, which I'm surprised is still a thing).

DAMN.  may immediately feel like a crossover, whether in the sense of leaving his hardcore fanbase behind or a fake out, but Kendrick Lamar is the second most popular rapper in the world  if we work under the assumption Eminem is a retired recluse rather than an annoying husk of a man on a string. As easy as it may be to feel owed another Butterfly  or mAAd City, it's hard to recall a time when the words "Kendrick Lamar" were interchangeable with "Bishop Lamont" or "Slim da Mobster". DAMN.  lets Lamar officially slam the reset button about as hard he can after a record as challenging as Butterfly, and it also lets elite ****-posters like The Ringer's Shae Serrano expertly skewer  the perception that Kendrick Lamar must always be a tome waiting to be deciphered.

Everybody wins with DAMN., if only we let ourselves.

 

[RIP sleazyy]

After an entire weekend and I don't even know how many spins forwards and backwards, twice with another person, hours spent listening intently alone, in the car on two 1 hour drives, in quality headphones, in the shower, off the henny, and smoked out my mind - this album is essentially perfect. I put it through every scenario I could to reach my conclusion.

On a 10 scale, I take off .5 points for FEEL because it's not that great to me but I still have not skipped it or anything else. Album comes to a 9.5 for me personally. I don't see anyone surpassing this album quality wise this year but I would love if someone did. If other rappers don't catch a spark and get on their **** after this, the crown really needs to go to Kendrick.

I knew son was incredibly skilled and arguably the best doing it right now but he really convinced me with this project. There is something for everyone on this album. Even knowing the subjectivity involved in musical preference, I can't see how a person who is a fan of rap/hip hop could not be feeling this album. This is hip hop purity. Dude is moving SEAMLESSLY from politically charged statement pieces to crowd rockers and club anthems to braggadocios yet self depreciating tracks with no visible effort at all. My son out here channeling Andre3k and the ghost of late 80s early 90s Ice Cube like he was born to do it.

 

[Proposition Joe]

I still haven't listened to it backwards yet

 

[moe fab]

I think my favorites are now FEAR., FEEL., n XXX.

 

[brendasdeadbaby]

After spinning this joint front to back, back to front, headphones, whip and on train since Thursday night I give this project a 9.2 only because love is trash and loyalty is slightly passable.

 

[MVP]

After spinning this joint front to back, back to front, headphones, whip and on train since Thursday night I give this project a 9.2 only because love is trash and loyalty is slightly passable.

 

[brendasdeadbaby]

[emoji]127998[/emoji]‍[emoji]127998[/emoji]‍[emoji]127998[/emoji]‍ my opinion not feeling them

 

[mos definition]

I still haven't listened to it backwards yet

Try it man you won't be disappointed. I actually prefer it that way as it flows better imo