Initially released on March 16, To Pimp a Butterfly is rap artist Kendrick Lamar’s third studio album. It has also earned him his first spot on Billboard’s top 200 chart.
As well as being a much anticipated follow up to good kid, m.A.A.d city, it seems that Pimp is also a much needed one as many fans had believed the rapper had fallen off.
Besides “i”, an upbeat self-love ballad which got some radio play over the summer, very few tracks on Pimp are what you would call easy listening.
Heavily stylized, incendiary and poetic, the album features funkadelic mastermind George Clin ton, jazz bassist Thundercat and Snoop Dogg among many others.
They all lend to the jazz inspired and heavy funk and R&B throwback elements of an album full of character and variety.
Still, all of these things blend fluidly with the overarching tone of Pimp.“For Free?”, an interlude about greed disguised as a sexual metaphor, is done in the style of rapid fire spoken word.
“u” is full of delirious repetition and dissolves into a crazed drunken rant so vividly performed by Lamar that you can almost imagine this character taking long gulps of a bottle as he lays on the couch of a cluttered apartment.
There is nothing shy about the narrative of this album. You won’t find any club hits or vapid one-note singles here. Not only is Pimp a self-parody/ reflection of Lamar’s struggles, it looks upon genre trappings and stereotypes as well.
It holds a mirror up to recent political, social and racial issues–much like Lupe Fiasco did (emphasis on the past tense)–when most of his mainstream peers are focused on self-entitlement and even killing.
One of the darkest tracks on the album is “The Blacker the Berry”, which features Jamaican artist Assassin, who lends his soulful and angry vocals to an already raw, racially charged commentary about black oppression.
Two other tracks worth listening to are “King Kunta” and “Mortal Man” which runs for twelve minutes but geniusly connects every track on the album to a dream-like interview that Lamar holds with Tupac Shakur.
The artwork and photography chosen for To Pimp A Butterfly is also phenomenal and symbolic and is worth a closer look.
Zhana Johnson
Senior Features Editor
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