12/27/2022 0 Comments All kendrick lamar albumsIt was because he wanted to testify about sin and redemption, in 14 songs, like the Stations of the Cross. It was no coincidence that he dropped it on Good Friday, though not, as the internet instantly convinced itself, because Lamar was going to “rise again” with a whole second album on Easter Sunday. Characteristically, Lamar carries that impulse to a further extreme, as a true believer and always a tormented moralist: As a whole, Damn really is an extended sermon. The first track, “Blood,” kicks off with cosmic-choir harmonies, posing the question, “Is it wickedness? … Is it weakness? … You decide …” Musically it calls up the choral sections on 2016 albums by Kanye West and Chance the Rapper that announced rap had a gospel-music revival going on. Unlike those records, though, Damn is not a cinematic or operatic story cycle. Damn has the thematic weight and structural intricacy to fit into what’s becoming a historic album run à la mid–1960s Bob Dylan or early–1970s Stevie Wonder, following TPAB and 2012’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. So Kendrick the competitor is on full alert here, but Lamar the artist and conceptualist never hits the snooze button either. (However, there are relatively few of the trendy island rhythms and house beats that prevailed, for instance, on Drake’s latest release Lamar’s not angling for Song of the Summer.) And instead of appearances from more obscure guests like Bilal, there’s a superb feature from Rihanna (rapping, even) on the core-values statement “Loyalty,” and even a (thankfully) subdued one from U2. Where TPAB drew heavily on the 1990s legacy of California rap as well as older jazz and soul, Damn more often evokes the Dirty South sound whose tendrils extend into most contemporary hip-hop. Lamar’s label head Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith also played a much more active role. Live free-jazz performers and electronic experimenters mostly cede to more commercial banger-makers such as Mike Will Made-It and in-house team member Sounwave producers’ producers such as the Alchemist and 9 th Wonder and a newer collaborator called Bēkon, formerly known as Danny Keyz. is visceral, spare, and straight to the point, whether he’s boasting about "royalty inside my DNA” on the trunk-rattling "DNA." or lamenting an anonymous, violent death on the soul-infused “FEAR.” No topic is too big to tackle, and the songs are as bold as their all-caps names: “PRIDE.” “LOYALTY.” “LOVE.” "LUST.” “GOD.” When he repeats the opening line to close the album, that simple walk has become a profound journey-further proof that no one commands the conversation like Kendrick Lamar.So on Damn(officially styled, along with the song titles, in all caps and with an emphatic period at the end), the album he dropped at the end of last week, the sound palette is stripped back to starker beats, effects, and vocal hooks. If Butterfly was jazz-inflected, soul-funk vibrance, DAMN. is a grab-you-by-the-throat declaration that’s as blunt, complex, and unflinching as the name suggests. The gunshot that abruptly ends the track is a signal: DAMN. opens with a seemingly innocuous line-"So I was taking a walk the other day…”-we're all ears. In the two years since To Pimp a Butterfly, we’ve hung on Kendrick Lamar's every word-whether he’s destroying rivals on a cameo, performing the #blacklivesmatter anthem on top of a police car at the BET Awards, or hanging out with Obama.
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