Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)

March 23, apparently:

http://pitchfork.com/news/58754-kendrick-lamar-announces-album-release-date/

― That shit right there is precedented. (cryptosicko), Friday, March 6, 2015 7:10 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good news!

― Maybe in 100 years someone will say damn Dawn was dope. (forksclovetofu), Friday, March 6, 2015 9:28 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah, a good old-fashioned CD-capacity rap record

― Simon H., Friday, March 6, 2015 10:51 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://cdn2.pitchfork.com/news/58808/d47a5880.jpg

― Number None, Wednesday, March 11, 2015 6:53 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

smidgen of info from Rolling Stone

Lamar also gave Rolling Stone a preview of six new songs from To Pimp a Butterfly, in addition to the two already released. The songs range from the intensely personal to the swaggeringly aggressive – like “King Kunta,” which could be the theme song from a Seventies blaxploitation flick. When Pharrell Williams first heard the track, he praised it by calling it “unapologetically black.” “It’s just him expressing how he’s feeling at the moment,” says Lamar’s longtime producer Mark “Sounwave” Spears. “And right now, he’s mad.”

Sonically, Lamar’s new album is adventurous, incorporating elements of funk, spoken-word poetry, and free-jazz, augmented by lots of live playing. (Lamar says he was listening to a lot of Miles Davis and Parliament while making it.) “It’s a unique sound,” says Sounwave. “Every producer I’ve ever met was sending me stuff, but there was a one-in-a-million chance you could send a beat that actually fit what we were doing.” Lamar’s longtime engineer, Derek "MixedByAli" Ali, says the rapper would often talk in moods: “He would say, ‘I want it to sound eerie,’ or ‘I want it to sound like you’re driving past something.’ Or he talks in colors: ‘Make it sound purple. Make it sound light green.’”

Lamar is vague about what specifically the title To Pimp a Butterfly means (“That will be taught in college courses someday,” he says). But he describes the album as “honest, fearful and unapologetic.” “You take a black kid out of Compton and put him in the limelight, and you find answers about yourself you never knew you were searching for,” he said. “There’s some stuff in there, man. It’s a roller coaster. It builds."

lol

I want it to sound like you’re driving past something.

copping that early Pollard sound, it would seem

gimme that doppler effect pedal

I haven't really been in love with this dude but this sounds interesting. I was into that song he did on Colbert awhile ago.

Kendrick is the shit IMO

Last time he talked about the Colbert song he said it was probably not going to be on the album, which seems even stranger now since it would seem to fit perfectly with the description in the RS excerpt

Really really looking forward to this

There's a tracklist on wikipedia now, not sure of its accuracy but it looks plausible.

I want it to sound like you’re driving past something.

Maybe he's going for this type of hip hop sound.

great title

My anticipation is through the roof. In my head it's the hip hop Black Messiah.

hope im dead wrong but 78 mins of this is going to be so wearying

78 minutes of anything is wearying

that cover, man.

feels like he's working at a different level rn

at the same time, i agree w/ xposts, i wish this would be under 60 mins. under 50 would be even better

lots of hip hop albums are very long, tbf.

i, for one, am looking forward to the skits

But are there any long hip hop albums that actually justify their length and don't feel bloated?

Is this the To Kill A Mockingbird sequel?

But are there any long hip hop albums that actually justify their length and don't feel bloated?

every De La Soul album, for starters

Possibly. Though I personally found Buhloone Mindstate to be one of their best albums because of its shortness.

"Prince Among Thieves"' 78 minutes is perfect imo

Wu-Tang Forever.

Moment of Truth by Gang Starr is 78 minutes. It has no skits or filler and is perfect.

can not wait for this

aquemini is like 10 sides long

awesome cover art

who's the judge they're sitting on

john boehner

if this actually incorporates a lot of actual free jazz i will eat my hat and love it

and yes great title

De La Soul is Dead is bloated imo.

Singles, "Bitties," "Millie," and the final trio aside, it's their weakest of the nineties. The one before and after are the classics imo.

fuck eating a hat

ILM will kill your least favorite thread title for money

this will definitely be one of my 3 CD purchases of the year!

2 and a half years is a while between albums for someone in his genre at his level this early in his career. i'm cool with him going whole hog on an 80-minute deal to try and justify the wait.

& honestly i can't think of a more predictable move after the success of his specific first album than doing a sprawling long ass follow up

by which i mean that i find it so unsurprising that i can't care either way

first album was pretty long in itself iirc

yeah i mean he got total adoration and became a massive star off an album he called "a short film" so..............

Full Rolling Stone interview is a good read

But are there any long hip hop albums that actually justify their length and don't feel bloated?

― MarkoP, Wednesday, 11 March 2015 17:25 (Yesterday) Permalink

Cuban Linx ... Could keep going I'm sure

Life after death
All eyez on me

Etcetera

Looking fwd to this obv although this quote is super douchey lol:

Lamar is vague about what specifically the title To Pimp a Butterfly means (“That will be taught in college courses someday,”)

totally into kendrick knowing about his rapping superpowers

lot of overlong, bloated rap albums. but theres also a lot that are necessarily long. eg - wu tang forever, de la soul is dead, 3 feet high, fear of a black planet. not 100% sure about the cover, its more the kind of cover id expect from idk, someone like gunplay. and while i like kendricks harder tracks a lot (maybe best), not sure i want a whole album of him doing 'angry', though im sure it wont be.

also overlong albums aren't the end of the world, esp. when you can just skip around!

yeah I hope these are studio versions but the word unmastered being in the title doesn't give me hope

the fallon track might be one of his GOATs imo

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/untitled-unmastered./id1089846273

in a stunning development this is completely great

feeling the vibe of this a whole bunch, cant believe swizz/keys baby boy produced 07, fucked up, gotta get my son in the studio tomorrow, im taking the day off

only the jammy second half

Into this - I've been wanting him to do a more off-the-cuff/lower-stakes release for a while and this fits the bill

are these all from the tpab sessions or what

I'm liking this. Not as purely dazzling as TPAB, but I kinda enjoy that the stakes are a bit lower

whoa, here's a surprise

This is great

are these all from the tpab sessions or what

― lag∞n, Friday, March 4, 2016 10:45 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all the songs are dated and only one of them says '2016' and the rest are 2013/2014 so i'm guessing that yeah this is pretty much the cutting room floor for that album.

i'm gonna start a thread on this if that's cool and C&P all these posts

Kendrick Lamar - untitled, unmastered (2016)

Thinking about the title, untitled unmastered is kind of an interesting choice - are these supposedly rough mixes, or is it a black consciousness statement, I have no title and no master?

I mean, with the whole Kunta Kinte reference on TPAB's breakout track.

it's very deliberate

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/6898260/tde-punch-kendrick-lamar-untitled-unmastered-interview

The second part of the project’s name, though, isn't just a label for the raw recordings. "Everything that we do is deliberate so if you hear something that says Unmastered, we absolutely did that on purpose,” Punch explained. “There’s more than one meaning behind that.

"We’re definitely trying to break chains musically and socially," he continues. "The whole thing to me just represents breaking the chains, whatever those chains might be, whatever chains society puts on you. We’re trying to break those and be free.”

ah, makes sense, I'm definitely too thick to have picked up on that myself

yeah, that's there too.
i like hearing cee-lo's voice on something i enjoy that was released in 2016

https://twitter.com/Yoonginese/status/708464990022463488?s=09

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/10/magazine/25-songs-that-tell-us-where-music-is-going.html?_r=1#/kendrick-lamar-the-blacker-the-berry

best thing i've read about "The Blacker The Berry"

Best writer in the world

Wow that piece is outstanding

yeah

Brief History of Seven Killings is the best book I've read in years

When shit hit the fan, is you still a fan?

http://www.thefader.com/2017/03/23/kendrick-lamar-a-cryptic-iv-on-instagram

It would be cool if whatever he does next made him into more of a pop presence, beyond showing up for guest verses on certain hits.

Not necessary for his music to be great, just think it'd be a cool extra

Kendrick never seems content to do the same thing twice, so I imagine album four—out April 7, if his insinuations are to be trusted—won't sound like either GKMC or TPAB. As someone who enjoyed the former more than the latter, I would welcome a poppier album. But I'm sure it will be good either way.

That new song, though! Too many Drake disses to count! Unlike Drake (except on "Back to Back" and "Charged Up"), Kendrick doesn't hide behind subliminals; the only way he could've been more direct is if he called out Drake by name. My favorite aspect is how he interpolates Drake lines—a common move by the 6 God—into song, like "Tables turned, lesson learned" and "This is in forever." As far as promo for album four, it can't get much better.

The best part is that Drake will be physically unable to sit on his hands. He's probably already preparing something.

the only way he could've been more direct is if he called out Drake by name

Or he could have stopped dissing Big Sean and dissed Drake instead

I'm not expecting an album that soon Buti would love to be wrong

Or he could have stopped dissing Big Sean and dissed Drake instead

The Big Sean disses are just as plentiful, too, I just focused on Drake because there's more history, has a bigger profile, and you know he'll feel the need to respond.

I was trawling through discography info to clarify which releases were considered albums and which were considered mixtapes and stumbled across the factoid that every Kendrick album since Good Kid, m.A.A.d City has appeared on Billboard's year-end album list every year since its release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvTRZJ-4EyI

banger

maybe we should start a thread for the new record

Definitely.

WE GET TURNT UP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsucJR9pk6A

I'm not goon enough to start a new thread but someone really should

Kendrick Lamar - 2017 Album (Rumored for April 7th)

just wanted to note that the original single version of "i" fucking rules really hard

Still kind of bummed that the live version ended up on the album.

the single version was a little too incongruously sunny for the album but I know what you mean

Yes! So damn good

Man, this album is so fucking good

yeah, it's evergreen

any word on his new album? seemed some talk that it was coming out in 2020 but haven't seen much lately

so fucking great

This went way left

On some Andy kellman core lol

I think I like it but not what I expected

― deej loaf (D-40), Monday, March 16, 2015 4:10 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

What's that? #latepass

This album is easily top ten of the last decade for me, so stacked with good songs that it's remarkably easy to sleep on some of them. I don't know how many listens it took me to realize that "Complexion" was actually great, even if it's only like the tenth best song on the album

DAMN hasn't held up as well, but I still eagerly await the next album

Jesus christ, what a transcendental work. I casually threw this on for the first time in a while but couldn't stay casual for long.
Hope he'll have something to share with us soon. Every couple months he trends on twitter and I get my hopes up that he dropped something but it's always just people using his name for clout. Curious to hear how fatherhood has influenced him.