To Pimp a Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar (2015)Hip-Hop is the most popular genre in the world, and there is a great reason for that. It is great music! Whether it be instrumentals by producers like Nujabes while working or Denzel Curry while on a much-too-infrequent run of mine, chances are that I’m listening to hip-hop. I wanted to share some of my personal favorite Hip-Hop albums that have I have been re-playing recently.
I started writing with the thought of sharing four albums, but I couldn’t stop writing about TPAB, so I guess I’ll space them out.
Music at its core is an expression of emotion, and Hip-Hop is so often an important expression of Black oppression and pain (I mean, Black New Yorkers invented it after all).
To Pimp A Butterfly by Pulitzer Prize-winning artist, Kendrick Lamar: While DAMN, the album he earned a Pulitzer Prize for, is also a fantastic album, I wholeheartedly believe that this album is a modern classic that needs to be in textbooks (I guess online textbooks) across the world. I’ve heard this album compared to a musical, and as not the biggest musical fan, I would buy a ticket as soon as I could if that ever happened. The recognition of awards don’t validate something as being art or not, but a Pulitzer certainly helps persuade some people. This is art. If you like funk or jazz, this won’t be too foreign of a listen for you. Instrumentals and vocals by jazz and funk geniuses like Thundercat and George Clinton just add to how good this whole thing is. So many talented musicians had a hand in making this album what it is. If you don’t identify as much of a fan of Hip-Hop, I just ask that you keep an open mind. If you think you can, try looking up the lyrics as you listen along and just listen. There’s no one to share your opinions with when it is just you and the music. So let the music carry you somewhere and see where you end up. It could very well take you to a better place.
Personally, I still vividly remember listening to the surprise at the end in my freshman dorm room and being in awe and even laughing at how incredible it was and still is.
But honestly, sometimes it is hard for me to listen to. It is heavy. So much of the desperation, frustration, anger and complexity of Black inequality in our country is in your face for the whole album. Much of the album wouldn’t be what people call ‘radio-friendly’. Lamar addresses themes like colorism, alcoholism, self-hatred and institutionalized racism for much of the album. But there are also strong themes of Black excellence, power, self-love and hope that serve as reminders that there is hope in the world and within all of us to fight for a better world. And all of this together is a good thing to face. It isn’t a comfortable experience if you aren’t used to being confronted so bluntly with a lot of the cruel realities of Black inequality. I have the privilege of being able to press pause and step away. But my American Black brothers and sisters can’t step away as easily. They live it.