Kendrick Lamar
“King Kunta”, #61
“The Blacker The Berry”, #66
“Alright”, #83
“Wesley’s Theory” (featuring George Clinton), #91
“These Walls” (featuring Bilal. Anna Wise & Thundercat), #94
“Institutionalized” (featuring Bilal, Anna Wise & Snoop Dogg), #99
It’s rare to hear a record that makes you feel as if you’re actually inside the artist’s head, but that’s what Kendrick Lamar has pulled off on To Pimp a Butterfly. Every sound, every sample, every bit of lyric, every vocal, whether it’s Lamar or not, it all sounds like his thoughts, his ideas, his feelings, his blessings and demons. That’s not always a good thing, as Lamar himself would be the first to admit, but the flaws and confusion, the stops and starts that suggest consideration and reconsideration, only make the record more real. And though these songs, and the album as a whole, are filled with dozens of historical reference points, both musical and lyrical, they never feel weighed down by external reference or anything less than fresh. It isn’t just that Lamar deploys his references so carefully, it’s that he re-illuminates them as he does so, and brings a whole strain of culture back from dormancy. The sound overall leans toward the darker side of Funkadelic, but George Clinton could make a funeral dirge sound funky and funny, and so, apparently, can Lamar, who in addition throws in moments of rage that Clinton rarely indulged. For all the support Dr. Dre has given Lamar in the past (and, of course, he’s makes an appearance here), this is the real passing of the torch, over the heads of a generation or two, looking further back than most rappers have bothered and, if we’re lucky, further forward, too.
Twenty One Pilots
“Fairly Local”
#84
Tyler Joseph’s studied vocal mannerisms made me mistake Twenty One Pilots for Brits at first—turns out they’re from Cleveland, which partially explains their metal-gone-electro sound, and Christians, which might explain their lack of humor and their overstated belief in the importance of their souls. Their fans call their music “schizophrenic pop”, which is another way of saying emo with synths and explains pretty much everything, including the way they humblebrag about themselves and their audience (“the few, the proud, and the emotional”). They’re not terrible, but I have my doubts about the wordless operatic vocal reminiscent of Enigma’s “Sade”. Is that supposed to be the voice of an angel expressing misery at the state of the world, or did they just like the sound? Their next single is called “Tear In My Heart”, and whether that’s tear as in rip or tear as in crying, it doesn’t bode well.