Kendrick Lamar will kill your favorite rapper for money

he sounds so checked out and noncommittal on the pop songs, which is weird, since Dreamchasers 2 proved he could do the shameless pop thing pretty well.

― Evan R, Friday, November 2, 2012 11:28 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't understand what 'shameless pop' means in this context

i think he's saying that meek mill will kill your pop-rap shame for money

like rtc upthread or somewhere, what i kinda wanted was a meekaveli, but more than anything else i feel like the album isn't sinister enough - it feels depressive in a more conventional way than his best stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEba1H_Dtd0

this was the first meek song i heard and it stopped me in my tracks and there's nothing like that on the album. beatwise or performance-wise

Depressive in a conventional way sums it up I guess.

Rass Kass?

http://vimeo.com/53053348#

Gaga's mix for BDKMV. I can see why it was left off imo

Definitley. Doesn't work at all. Good call from Kendrick & crew.

damn, I'd even go so far as to say the bish killed his vibe

i think it sounds good... if it was a gaga song i'd be intrigued. obv we're all used to the original, also that's probably unmixed and i'm sure the vocals wouldn't have been as prevalent if that version had made the album

yeah, i don't mind the gaga on it... like j0rdan says, we're all used to the album version now so anything else seems off.. then again, kendrick doing his own hook really does work on the track, especially in the way it doesn't seem that differentiated from the verses at first, i really like that

I actually kind of dig the gags version?

not more than kendrick's but i thought it was striking.

it's one of the most boring songs on the album to start with and she makes it neither demonstrably better nor worse

i can feel your energy from 2 planets away

I love that song. It's the only one on the album that I've regularly sought out since exhausting the record a few weeks ago

(I don't mean that as a knock against the record, which is littered with greatness obviously; I just don't think the album has great replay value)

the album has great replay value but there are a few i skip all the time. the hook is the WORST, dullest thing

hook is honestly like a top 5 moment from this album for me...

it's so lazy and whiny and irritating and fundamentally unvibey

Lol. And no.

def my favorite song on the album. this is another one of your weird hatred of "adorn" things, huh?

^^

Lex don't kill my vibe.

Still, the album isn't quite a classic: Lamar's depiction of downtrodden women is unnecessarily prurient and unconvincing.

Usage

The most common use of the colon is to inform the reader that what follows the colon proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded it.

good thing that no classic rap albums have downtrodden women or unnecessary prurience

Thought I was downloading the Kendrick Lamar album, turned out to be a fake & is actually Skyzoo's A Dream Deferred. But it's pretty good!

lol

skyzoo fans will do anything to make that guy happen huh

I liked the one he did with !llmind

lex, of all the hooks to call out, why that one and not the atrocious hook on backseat freestyle? i find backseat freestyle and compton to be the weak points on the album. braggadocio doesn't suit kendrick, even the meta-braggadocio on backseat freestyle. the eiffel tower line is just painful; i don't care if the song is a k-dot retrospective

yeah "Backseat Freestyle" doesn't work for me at all

I love Backstreet Freestyle, inc the hook and the Eiffel Tower line, I like that the album has a banger on it. I don't know what anyone has against Real either. The BDKMV hook just brings to mind boring stoners whingeing

it's almost literally a "banger" in scarequotes though

i love "real", especially the earnest corniness, but i can see how it might not pop to people who aren't saps like me. speaks for how amazing this album is that "real" is a below-the-median track.

"bdkmv" is pretty stonery and contemplative... which is really what kendrick does? i'm perfectly happy to leave bangers to every other rapper. dislike the unchallenged idea that contemplative rappers must include at least one banger on every lp. i've been listening to aquemini a lot lately, and enjoy how they had the good sense to bring in raekwon for their obligatory banger to pop off. i rep for drake but he is really not the right sidekick to inject energy into that war-drum beat. i guess kendrick already made his track with gunplay, though.

"backseat freestyle" is not one that i listen to out of context but it makes sense in the arch of the album and sounds better up against all the other beats on the album

"backseat freestyle" is one of the less remarkable productions IMO but since it's the only banger it works more than it would if it was just on something like 2 chainz' album or w/e

I listen to "Backseat Freestyle" constantly because of the cadence shifts in the rapping and the components that drop in and out of the beat, especially the "Ooooooh" that comes in when Kendrick starts getting nuts.

"Backseat Freestyle" worked very well as on-repeat getting myself pumped to go out music last night.

Also re the "Eiffel Tower" line, I love how it's balanced out by the line "and I cum too fast, but I never get embarrassed"

BDKMV is just straight-up gorgeous and if you can't see that then ijdk.

^^^ this too

basically I like every song on this a lot, even the one with Drake on it, which also pisses me off but hey

Sometimes I'm not in the mood for that ARANDINGDING sample in "Backseat Freestyle."

I am always in the mood for that sample

"and I cum too fast, but I never get embarrassed"

classic

As far as bangers go I can get behind Backseat Freestyle but something about it rubs me the wrong and I'll try to compose that into a intelligible post:

it's kind of like Kendrick is trying to get away with being ratchet and excessive by passing it off like "this isn't how I am now or anything, I just acted like this in high school" but there's a logical flaw there because like, it's a track he recorded and released in 2012. It's analogous to saying "I don't mean to be racist but..." and then saying something crazy racist. Like you shouldn't get a pass for saying stuff like that cause you preempted it with that tag, if that makes any sense. I really like the song and get its place on the album but that aspect of it is a little ehhh to me.

Well it's not being racist. It's letting go - and the album needs it.

yes ok the racist analogy was extreme but I stand by my sentiment that it's him trying to get away with being, as fennel cartwright said, "braggadocio," even though it seems like a lot of the rest of the album wants to get away from that, under this rouse of "we were such crazy teenagers!"

it's kind of like Kendrick is trying to get away with being ratchet and excessive by passing it off like "this isn't how I am now or anything, I just acted like this in high school"

yall are reading some shit into this that isnt there

yall are reading some shit into this that isnt there

what do you mean? afaik it's pretty universally accepted that the album is a coming of age story with a linear narrative.

and i don't think the song is "letting go" at all - it seems more forced than his other tracks! i find he lets go more on "stoner" tracks like ADHD or BDKMV. the guy is naturally pretty chill and contemplative and i don't think it's very real to him being aggressive like that.

If you don't like the one song on this album that sounds like a rap song then I don't know what

the guy is naturally pretty chill and contemplative and i don't think it's very real to him being aggressive like that.

I dont even ride for this album that hard and this pisses me off.

The whole point of Kendrick Lamar if that he can't be boiled down to easy emotions and expected rap "modes." He's not "the contemplative guy," hes a rapper who can be comfortable being contemplative and aggressive and like 50 other things. Stop trying to make him Tribe Called Quest just because Paste is riding for him or w/e

This is why I'm not so into stressing the concept album / narrative w/ this album.