To Pimp a Butterfly

I like how this album combines different genres
to talk about the African American identity and experience. Favorite songs are “The Blacker the Berry” and “I.”

I'm definitely not talking shit about a Kendrick album

banger! outside of just. really incredible songs (u and i and the interludes all being particular standouts to me), the album itself is super well constructed. The motifs....guys, the motifs..... overall excellent. really really enjoyed.

On a tier of truly special all-timers that have had a profound impact on culture; contain timely, meaningful commentary on contemporary life (either politically or personally); and are so musically accomplished, pushing the boundaries of pop music at the time in a way that sounds fresh and exciting, yet rooted in its history (see also MBDTF, OK Computer, Is This It, Back to Black etc).

This is just one of the best albums of all time. I vividly remember hearing this for the first time in high school and knowing I was hearing something truly special. The lyrical content and various themes touched upon with the consistent through line of the poem work exceptionally well with the jazzy and funky instrumentation. I think this is Kendrick’s best album, however I find myself listening to GKMC slightly more.

Kendrick is such a consistently great artist, who blends his lyrics perfectly with the beats. As with a lot of Kendrick’s output there is an element of jazz to his music, which makes him stand out that bit more from a lot of his contemporaries, as does keeping skit type breaks to a minimum (to the extent i’m not sure i’d even label them that)

Tracks like Alright cut deep and a Rapsody feature is always welcome, as she should be much bigger (in the UK at least, i have no idea how she is received elsewhere)

I was interested in hearing this, given my Kendrick experience is solely Drake-beef adjacent.

I liked King Kunta, Alright, How Much A Dollar Cost and i (though that track mostly because I love the track it samples - I lost interest in the talky bit). And that was about it.

I recognise how massively influential this was, and continues to be. Its blend of styles is admirable, and interesting, but just not enjoyable to my ears. I do like quite a lot of hip-hop (it's one of my top rated genres on the generator after about 10 months of rating) but it's tended to be the older stuff that I enjoy rather than more modern experimental stuff.

And then it ended with another 12 minute track that was mostly a chat... Judging by this album, Kendrick isn't for me.

It's hard to cut through the noise about this album -- there's so much discourse around Kendrick. Everybody's got something to say about the politics, the poetry, the production, Tupac, Drake, the Pulitzer, is it as good as Damn?, is it as good as GKMC?, Fox News, Geraldo, the Super Bowl, the Grammys, BLM, woke, post-woke, Trump, Obama, it's a masterpiece, it's overrated, yada yada yada yada. And to Kendrick's credit all these conversations revolve around his art, not some nonsense public image or PR stunts. I thought this album was brilliant when it came out, and re-listening 10+ years later I still think it's brilliant. Fuck all the hot takes, this is the sound of an artist at his creative peak, exploding with musical ideas.

some parts were good others boring

I used to smoke tabs walking from the rail station on schooldays. I didn't really like it but I though that when I walked past adults, they might think I was cool and hard.

Here is a record with tracks about wiping your arse, about my dick and with a "nigga" count of 115. Why? Is it a commentary about life in an American ghetto? Is it a social statement? No it's so you can play it very very loud, and hope that you're overheard by adults and they might think that you are cool and hard.

I'm an adult now and know that I looked like a dickhead.

(1½ for some of the tunes being listenable - even if they are rudely interrupted)

Kendrick Lamar two days in a row was a little challenging, but he's pretty good. Happy Black History Month!

TPAB is somehow de hele tijd veel te ambitieus in wat er uitgeprobeerd wordt op elk nummer, om vervolgens makkelijk weg te komen met iedere stunt. Een mijlpaal in hiphop en daarbuiten, dat alle lof verdient die het over de jaren heeft gekregen.

So much to enjoy. So much to hate. It's all over the place. And that's kind of a good thing? A ton of work must have gone in to combining all the sounds and styles on this album. It pulls your attention all over the place. Over indulgent? Probably. It's ruined by some of the words and language used, which is a shame. Can I get a version without the profanity and N-words? I liked it when Snoop Dogg popped up like he had just walked through the room. I can understand why rap and hip-hop fans consider this an important album, can't be many other like it in this genre.

I can't give yet another 3/5 can I?

this was very good. i love how smooth his rapping style is

There's so many layers to this record. Those who gave this album a score lower than 3 never even gave it a chance. Probably #1 hiphop album ever.

Oh yes. Legendary album. I nearly played it to death after my daughter was born. Listening to it while pushing her around in her buggy.
So many individual highlights and the whole still adds up to more than it's parts.
The variety of music on here and the scale of ambition (fully, fully realised) puts this easily in the realm of genius.

It’s been a year and a half since I listened to good kid, m.A.A.d city as album #56 on my journey. Heck, it's been a long time since I first listened to the follow-up, To Pimp a Butterfly, back in 2018. Since then, these two records have been regarded among the classics, not just for conscious hip-hop, but music in general. There have been academic studies about these two albums that will capture more intricacy and layered details than I could possibly muster up in my reviews for this album generator website. All that said, there's still the matter of how these records hold up in my personal opinion. I enjoyed good kid before, and I will say right now that I ended up enjoying To Pimp a Butterfly once again, but let me see if I can dive into why.

I think the first aspect of this record that has to be established is that Kendrick went for something ambitious here. After going for a more West Coast hip-hop broad appeal with good kid, he opted for the next record to be a little more challenging in the presentation. A progressive jazz rap album that touches upon multiple genres, running through the history of African-American music through a personal, introspective lens. Opening the record on "Wesley's Theory" with Thundercat's bubbling bassline and fragments of horns and synths, before giving way to a skittering free flow over frenetic saxophone play on "For Free?", followed by the early-80s funk stomp of "King Kunta", there's a certain mastery in flowing across these various musical styles. It also helps that this record maintains a crisp, organic production, while also taking cues from G-funk such as the chime and keyboard pairing of "These Walls" with the chorus vocals that has such a bounce to it. From the dancehall-inspired ferocity of "The Blacker The Berry" to the live performance of "i" with the sample of the Isley Brothers' "That Lady", to the dusty boom-bap of "Momma", the unsettling gang vocals and alto saxophone over the hard-hitting beat of "Alright" that give way to the glittering keyboards of "For Sale?", the dreary piano line over the cracking beat of "How Much a Dollar Cost", the subtle record-scratching over the hook of "Complexion (A Zulu Love)", even touches of spoken word throughout the album that culminates in the ending of "Mortal Man", there's not a single compositional idea here that Kendrick and the session personnel aren't able to execute effectively. Not to mention, there's the cavalde of guest musicians brought into the fold for some of their best moments, from Snoop Dogg's narration on "Institutionalized", to Anna Wise's hooks on the same track and "These Walls", to Rapsody's positive affirmations for blackness on "Complexion (A Zulu Love)", to even freaking George Clinton on the choruses of "Wesley's Theory".

Of course, production and composition are only half the battle for a hip-rop record. Let's talk about lyrics and themes, as in mirroring the stylistic variety on display, To Pimp a Butterfly is not a full concept record so much as a series of vignettes, conveyed through Kendrick's multisyllable rhyming that's impeccably layered, to the point where even rapping over a busy jazz beat such as on "For Free?" becomes a cakewalk for him. On the surface, Kendrick does go for more sociopolitical content, openly critical of an exploitative record industry and the predominantly white audience that simulatoneously swallows the shallow crap and strikes down anything that steps out of line, or even succumb to the extremities of greed and lust. He's not even shy to drag the obvious comparisons to slavery to the forefront with language provocative enough to draw ire from across the board. But here's the thing with the framing - Kendrick paints himself as the main culprit, showing how enticing "Lucy" can be with her gifts, especially when the realization sinks in that he has to face the demons he released.

That leads to the ultimate dramatic arc of this record, where Kendrick is not afraid to call himself a hypocrite. He talked about the distance he put between himself and his family, highlighting his own failures for not doing more and the temptation of taking the easy way out, be it through wealth, sex or a Glock. From there, he ventured home to try and reconnect with his roots, only to find himself further isolated in his own community due to his newfound success, a kind of survivor's guilt placed upon himself compared to those who face a broken system every day. The feeling of guilt reaches a tipping point in "How Much a Dollar Cost", where he refuses to help a homeless junkie who turned out to be God himself. That moment symbolized one of the primary metaphors of this album, that giving back or giving from yourself might bear no fruit or change to a larger system, but it can change lives on a smaller scale and that can make all the difference. It's a call not only to Kendrick himself, but to the larger whole to reject petty squabbles that can divide a community, to instead seek real enlightenment and passion within. What's super neat about this kind of messaging is that Kendrick is not being preachy about it, merely offering the options for people to choose on their own accord to better themselves. It's a strategy that works here, alongside the address to shallow rappers on "You Ain't Gonna Lie", or the positive call to action on "i", without fully giving up on contronting racial injustice on a visceral cut like "The Blacker The Berry".

That brings us to the final track, "Mortal Man", where Kendrick makes a final call to his audience, to see if they are willing to follow him, even if the road ahead can be a tough one with all the temptations and challenges ahead. The refrain of "When shit hit the fan, is you still a fan" hits hard at this point in the album, knowing full well that Kendrick is a flawed man trying to rise above it all. Upon conclusion, Kendrick gets to recite the poem he'd been rehearsing throughout this record, each verse serving as a key thematical point for the various tracks throughout in highlighting his personal journey. It's a rather poignant poem that he reads out loud to - and I shit thee not - the late Tupac Shakur. In a rather transformative sample of an interview conducted back in 1994, Kendrick has a psuedo-conversation with his fallen idol, asking him questions to understand what the latter's come up was like and what he saw for future generations of black people. Kendrick then precedes to recite a second poem he had written, wherein he sums up the title of the album; the butterfly is the enlightened soul, the caterpillar represents those who would exploit it, and the cocoon is the system that perpetuates the exploitation, confined behind the walls. It's only when one breaks out of the system that they can be considered free, inspire other caterpillars to transform... yet at the same time the caterpillar and the butterfly can be considered the same person. Transcendence only truly matters when pitted against humanity, and it brings a message of universality that we can all get there, echoing what Tupac talked about with spirits, where "we ain't really rappin', we just lettin' our dead homies tell stories for us." It's only when Kendrick asks Tupac whether he agrees that he gets no answer. He's left alone, questioning whether his fallen legend would have agreed or thought the system can't be broken. There's no solace or clarity at the end, as it's really up to Kendrick, the audience, and the world at large to figure that answer out.

My hope is that I've laid out, to the best of my abilities, why I consider To Pimp a Butterfly to be an amazing record that still holds up over a decade later. It's the kind of transformative record that pushed the envelope for how intellectual and layered conscious hip-hop can be, without needing to compromise itself to play to the very system it critiques. Kendrick himself would continue to innovate and carry the torch, and the bar was set pretty high here.

Finds gut, aber leider nicht ganz so gut wie good kid, maad city. Teilweise zu stressig. Mag trotzdem seinen Rapflow, Texte und Beats. Gute 4 Sterne!

I have nothing to say about this record that hasn't already been said. Very funny reading the dumbest fucking one-star reviews on this one though.

Greatest rap album of the 2010's