Kendrick Lamar will kill your favorite rapper for money

it's kinda weird/cool to me to see so many ppl repping for stuff that's so backpackerish, but i wish i liked kendrick more, or was more enthusiastic about him

the part of this new "the heart" song...the part where he lets his voice get all emo...his flow is SUPER brother ali on that part, total trademark ali flow

Was thinking the SAME thing.

still a little disappointed there's no BJ the Chicago Kid hook on this album, I like their collaborations so much. Did his (BJ's) album get discussed anywhere on ILX? I didn't see it on the R&B thread.

― boxall, Monday, October 22, 2012 9:42 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was gonna bring it up on the r&b thread. I really like the BJ album and think it warrants some discussion.

uh ok for a start sherane isnt even part of the "plight of a woman" business, she's a narrative device to get into the gang plot? even in that depiction the titillation is self-aware and foreshadowing "seventeen, with nothing but pussy stuck on my mental my motive was rather sinful", "my tactics of being thirsty probably could hurt me but fuck it i got some heart"

keisha's sister of plight fame is voiced in first person and is self-glorified is as part of her defensive hollow bravado. perhaps a little clumsy if you're being very harsh but it's in no way badminded, ambitious, and imo is enough to illustrate an difficult situation. i will agree however that "my titties bounce on the cadence of his tingling keys" is probably the one line on the entire record that deserves the accusation of prurience

going all in on one line, when it's mitigated by the whole rest of the record, (and when you yourself say it's from only a couple of listens) smacks pretty obviously of finding any excuse to grind a cartoon axe and is not a particularly good look considering the weight of the accusation being thrown

it's kinda weird/cool to me to see so many ppl repping for stuff that's so backpackerish, but i wish i liked kendrick more, or was more enthusiastic about him

― terrell sug (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, October 22, 2012 11:49 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??? its not really that backpackerish imo

the heart song i was talking about it crazy backpacker! plus i think black hippy is backpackerish in general! one of them is named "Ab-Soul" that name screams "guest verse of a Blackalicious song"

Ab-Soul and Jay Rock's names have always amused me because years ago i knew a backpacker cat named Ab Rock

http://soundcloud.com/jay-soul

oh shit i forgot about this, it's even more confusing than i thought: http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/jsoul99/JROCK_Cover.jpg

the heart song i was talking about it crazy backpacker! plus i think black hippy is backpackerish in general! one of them is named "Ab-Soul" that name screams "guest verse of a Blackalicious song"

― terrell sug (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, October 22, 2012 12:31 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ab-Soul and Jay Rock's names have always amused me because years ago i knew a backpacker cat named Ab Rock

― my mansplain songz (some dude), Monday, October 22, 2012 12:40 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and the songs where kendrick describes watching a dude's brains get blown out, or coming up in compton, or breaking & entering?

it's way more nuanced than a simple backpacker v street rap thing

i think your "don't use the b word" stance is more absolutist than m@tt's "there are backpacker elemtns here" stance

isn't "backpacker" defined by a strict anti-mainstream stance? which is nowhere on this, i mean dr. fucking dre and lady gaga are on it...

that's not the sole defitnion or even the primary definition, no

http://www.rap-up.com/2012/10/22/new-music-kendrick-lamar-swimming-pools-black-hippy-remix/

i love the chicago kid album

yeah of course that's not the sole definition, but it's why it's used as a derogatory term, no?

m@tt wasn't using it in a derogatory way though

Just catching up with this thread now; wanted to finish my review first. Agree that the album is really great, but I don't buy into the instant classic hype. I question its replay value (I'm already a little burned out on it), and also the skits and interludes are really heavy handed. He doesn't trust the listener to follow his narrative w/o explicitly spelling it out, so as good/great as the individual songs are, those long chunks of spoken dialogue really make some of the album a chore to get through

in general the value of skits erodes over time but i think they're really immersive in this case

I don't mind a skit here or there for effect or color, but when the skits hold your hand and guide you through almost every song on an album, it gets really tiresome

that is exactly what De La Soul Is Dead does and that's one of the greatest albums ever

sorta with m@tt on this, and i really liked section 80?

listen more

I don't mind a skit here or there for effect or color, but when the skits hold your hand and guide you through almost every song on an album, it gets really tiresome

― Evan R, Monday, October 22, 2012 2:29 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i guess i sort of like that kind of ephemera that is weaved into the fabric of an album... most rap skits aren't treated that way

comparing any contemporary rap album skits to De La Is Dead is unfair. if they get in the way and don't have as much replay value as the songs College Dropout is probably more germane to bring up.

that's not the sole defitnion or even the primary definition, no

― my mansplain songz (some dude), Monday, October 22, 2012 12:58 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but what possible definition is useful in describing this album?

i will agree however that "my titties bounce on the cadence of his tingling keys" is probably the one line on the entire record that deserves the accusation of prurience

going all in on one line, when it's mitigated by the whole rest of the record, (and when you yourself say it's from only a couple of listens) smacks pretty obviously of finding any excuse to grind a cartoon axe and is not a particularly good look considering the weight of the accusation being thrown

lol it really isn't this time though, i like kendrick and i like this album, but a couple of tracks just felt genuinely skeevy to me. "fuck, suck and swallow in the parking lot" too - the language in keisha's sister's verse is so pornified that it just doesn't convince as her voice, there's too much getting off on it.

otherwise i'm with evan completely, and definitely on the over-long and heavy-handed skits. there's some amazing stuff here - "backstreet freestyle", the "good kid" thru "swimming pools" section (the latter sounds even better in this context) and i really love the corny redemptive "real"/"compton" closers, plus obv "the recipe" is amazing and "black boy fly" is secretly one of the most resonant tracks here despite being "just" a bonus track. i feel it's too uneven to be called A Classic, esp given that no one has spent a decent amount of time with it yet, but otoh its high points do a really great job of further carving out who kendrick is.

i don't think of backpacker as a derogatory thing, i like backpacker rap...i'm talking about backpacker in terms of how he rhymes, general vibe, music, etc

also i don't think that being backpacker excludes having street rap or crime elements...like i consider bootcamp click to be backpackers essentially, and DITC as a whole is backpackerish (i'm using maybe an older definition of backpacker which now i guess it basically means lame shit w.feelings -- though kendrick has a lot of feelings too)

(i think my actual favourite track is "m.a.a.d city" - the switch-up midway through is amazing

but i'm kind of amazed that people don't think that this is at least somewhat of a modern reapproachment of backpacker stuff....black hippy as a crew kinda feels like heiro or dudes like saafir etc

i got what you were saying

it feels closer to 'aquemini' than that stuff tho although very obv kendrick came out of the west coast backpacker vibe, i mean that's more or less what black hippy is although 2 of those dudes were pretty much gangsters

idk i think it sort of confounds these categorizations

listen more

― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Monday, October 22, 2012 7:31 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, yes. And listen better.

Also, I'm getting more of an ATLiens vibe than an Aquemini vibe?

i guess i always saw andre is kinda backpackerish anyway, so idk...the word's kinda loaded now but i didn't mean it in a bad way

granted my background in backpacker rap is essentially nil but i definitely immediately thought of southern rap when i first hear this

like, production-wise it reminds me a ton of g side - starshipz & rockets tbh. which itself is certainly grown out of things like aquemini. he's not terribly far off old andre as a rapper, either.

i know you didn't mean it in a bad way! i'm arguing it from a qualitative perspective

i guess if we're operating under some kinda strawman definition where backpacker rap is 100% bitching about whoever is on top of the rap charts, reciting journal entries about ex-girlfriends, and recipes for tofu stir fry it's not backpackerish

(i think my actual favourite track is "m.a.a.d city" - the switch-up midway through is amazing

― lex pretend, Monday, October 22, 2012 11:39 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah same here.

btw pharrell's beat on this album is terrible

its weird & not a standout but not distracting or anything
also i dig the roy ayers interpolation

btw pharrell's beat on this album is terrible

i love that beat and that track

Definitely not terrible.

I get get he Outkast vibe a little, but its not like majorly overt or anything.

Probably the most clear on The Art Of Peer Pressure which is like the Art of Story Telling Part 3 basically.

i guess if we're operating under some kinda strawman definition where backpacker rap is 100% bitching about whoever is on top of the rap charts, reciting journal entries about ex-girlfriends, and recipes for tofu stir fry it's not backpackerish

― terrell sug (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, October 22, 2012 2:49 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol but yes. i mean, i think everyone here is right? there are tracks where it feels very andre, very outkast, very long-form narrative southern beats etc. and there are moments where it feels very much like...

idk Blu. you know? who i might describe as a backpacker. and like Black Hippy and Blu have that Miguel connection from back in the day. something like 'good kid' feels not too far from 'Below the Heavens'

I did not realize the three different deluxe versions of this have different bonus tracks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_kid,_m.A.A.d_city#Track_listing

welcome to the world of contemporary pop music

the CD album has fully replaced the CD single I guess