This is not a review, just an announcement, the new Kendrick Lamar is here. Lamar gave hip-hop a long awaited FUNK injection with his debut release “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” in 2012. His new CD “To Pimp a Butterfly” is a Funkalicious follow-up.
The new release features the classic music makers, funk innovators and hip-hop creators Ron Isley, George Clinton, Thundercat, Bilal, Lalah Hathaway, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Rapsody.
The Tracks:
1) Wesley’s Theory (ft. George Clinton & Thundercat)
2) For Free? (Interlude)
3) King Kunta
4) Institutionalized (ft. Bilal, Anna Wise & Snoop Dogg)
5) These Walls (ft. Bilal, Anna Wise & Snoop Dogg)
6) U
7) Alright
8) For Sale? (Interlude)
9) Momma
10) Hood Politics
11) How Much A Dollar Cost (ft. James Fauntleroy & Ronald Isley)
12) Complexion (A Zulu Love) (ft. Rapsody)
13) The Blacker The Berry
14) You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said)
15) i
16) Mortal Man
The New York Times did an item on the essence of “To Pimp a Butterfly”… http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/arts/music/kendrick-lamar-on-his-new-album-and-the-weight-of-clarity.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
“The Blacker The Berry” embraces the stereotypes and racist views black American men can be subjugated to.
“i” features an appearance and vamps by Ron Isley and encompasses the melody of the Isley Brothers classic “Who’s That Lady”
UPDATE 4/ 3/ 15… The “King Kunta” video
UPDATE 7/ 5/ 15… The “Alright” video
Lamar’s first commercial single “The Recipe” featuring Dr. Dre
A quote from Marc Lynch of The Washington Post, relayed to me by my friend and fellow lover of music & FUNK Gary Harris, sums up the essence of the album and Lamar himself… “The moment is clearly right for artistically ambitious, politically engaged hip-hop to re-emerge. Talib Kweli, Killer Mike, J. Cole and many other hip-hop artists have been prominent voices responding to the killings of young black men such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. “To Pimp a Butterfly” seizes this moment, infusing it with a complex, sustained meditation on the nature of power, identity and leadership. There have already been some great essays on “To Pimp a Butterfly” by music critics far better positioned than I am to discuss Kendrick’s place in the history and practice of hip-hop. But there is also a real political science dimension to the project. Where talented contemporaries like Drake rarely venture a thought deeper than “being rich makes me sad,” Kendrick grapples with core political theory questions of power, identity and the ethics of leadership. He exhibits a challenging ethos of self-critique as a tentative path forward. And, lest you worry that you’re in for a tedious sermon, he does so without ever being less than lyrically and musically thrilling, cultivating a sound utterly unlike hip-hop’s state of the art.”
in FUNK we Trust
c-dub
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