Kendrick's latest doubles down on the epic, personal sweep of GKMC, tying knotted narrative to a swirling cloud of deep funk and jazz touchstones. You're aaalll up in the rapper's head and it's a claustrophobic spot, full of anxiety and overthought, wooly with wiry Thundercat bass, rhodes pulses, reverb filling every airhole.
Lamar rants and raves, repeats himself, trying to get past contradictions, obsessing, working, working out a personal story that doesn't make sense even to him. You watch the story of the man figuring out how to tell the story, the story of getting famous, leaving a life behind, enduring corruption, and trying to reconcile all the things he's seen and things he's been, weaving themes of self-respect and community responsibility.
It does bring the funk, and for a 3-and-a-half span from Complexion to the first act of i, its actually downright exciting: the clouds part, the mind unclenches, Radiohead and Steely Dan flourishes seem strangely at home. But it's mostly a difficult record, more rewarding than enjoyable, as Kendrick rants for minutes at a time, disappears down rabbit holes, repeats himself, obsesses, climaxing not with a melody to carry into your day but a 7-minute fantasy dialog with 2Pac (?).
It's a final commitment to art over pop, for anyone who thought he was on the fence. And that's great. This is a great album and a great piece of art. Just know what you're in for: this isn't a party, its a guided tour of a stately space, and it's more about atmosphere and history than having a real good time 4/5
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Yeah, it's epitomized by the version of "i" as the penultimate track.
ReplyDeleteNow, I understand that the studio single was released six months earlier, and it charted, so maybe there's an argument for including some variation on the album. And it starts up, and damn -- it's bangin'! This is exactly what I want! "*rock* on the corner with a line full of fiend"! His voice whips and snaps and curves and swerves.
At 1:08, he stop rapping for a moment to tell someone to "come to the front". It's kinda cool -- situating, even. Fine. But then, at 1:30, he continues to invite other people up to the front. "Babydoll, you -- yeah, c'mon." And then he lets the mike sit cold for a bit. The background singers continue on, dutifully, interjecting words that make no sense without Kendrick supplying the context. "Crazy," they say. "What you gonna do?" He deigns to put a bit in: "Lift up your head and keep moving," he says, promising to get back in the swing of things, but then stops again to tell the folks behind the board to "turn the mic up".
Finally, he settles into a groove for just a little bit, finishing the verse and doing a chorus. He then slips into the bridge, which is the heart of the song, frankly, filling the listener in on the fact that this is a personal song, a song about overcoming difficulties, that despite his prominent declaration that he loves himself, he has been "dealing with depression ever since [he was an] adolescent", that it's a war, it's ongoing, and but that he intends to fight it until he "gets it right".
He gets about 25 seconds into this humanizing (and well-delivered) section when an argument breaks out in the crowd. "Not on my time, bro!" declares Kendrick. "Kill the music!" And he then proceeds to have a minute long argument with some anonymous speaker, and then give us some preachy freestyle, concluding with some rather dubious etymological assertions.
Point being -- this is not a track laid by a person who cares, as you sayt, about the listener having a good time. In this case, he's actively stopping me from doing so.
Damn, that could have been a bangin' track.
awesome analysis - that track really does sum things up: it shows just how bad off he is, doubting himself into oblivion, just as things get going. its such a committed art-over-pop move, to basically have a botched take, live-moment catastrophe as the intentionally-chosen one version of your best song. And it never really hit me, but (specifically lowercase) i is the perfect name for this track.
ReplyDeleteFurther listener hostility: when he was touring festivals after this album he basically wasn't playing any of the stuff off this new album.
So I went to his set at bonnaroo with low expectations, but he fucking crushed it. played a bunch of stuff off this album, Alright, King Kunta, and yes, i, were all banging as hell. Was a huge surprise favorite. Very curious to see what this guy gets up to next..