Very interesting essay. I find a lot of criticisms of Kendrick take on the property of being quite aesthetically appealing while, to me, falling apart with deeper analysis because they tend to project ideas onto Kendrick, like hope, over listening to the actual things he says. For instance, the lyrics of Euphoria are: “this ain't been about critics, not about gimmicks, not about who the greatest, It's always been about love and hate, now let me say I'm the biggest hater, I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress”. With that in mind, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would then say, “the beef is probably more personal than anything”. Kendrick's disdain is multi-layered, you can deduce that much of it is a lot do with protecting the spirit of hip hop from someone who he believes has damaged the art-form that he knows and loves... but he said unequivocally it was personal.
I think calling Kendrick "sanctimonious" relies on two misconceptions: a) he is attempting to be a political/moral figure and b) that Kodak's inclusion on his album means that he's “wrong” for calling Drake a paedophile. I write about the latter more in my piece here (https://www.yoursinigo.com/p/the-utility-of-morality) but in short: Kodak expressed remorse for his past conduct and if we see Mr. Morale as searching for personal redemption, Kodak's inclusion on the album is Kendrick giving him a shot of redemption which is actually a pretty consistent theme for Kendrick as a person. It is honestly a more compelling argument to say that Drake is probably not a paedophile and so Kendrick is wrong for calling him one on such a massive scale because it is not ideal for our general cultural attitudes towards protecting children to make false accusations of that size (or if its true, an international diss song is the entirely wrong way to deal with it.)
The other criticisms of "Kendrick will never hit as hard again because Kendrick was a definitionally Obama-era artist" (something that I've also written about but in tweet form: https://x.com/SaveInigo/status/1777014837270241398) and of him being anachronistic are slightly confusing, especially in the context of Arcade Fire who you say "mistook being called the meaning of “genius” here as dubbing astounding intellect and insight rather than its other usage as being used to dub astounding creativity and intuition”. You seem to insinuate that the bulk of Kendrick's genius relies on the political analysis of the era you’ve deemed his best — which makes me wonder why you made the Arcade Fire comparison at all seeing that the major appeal of Kendrick's music has always been his rapping ability, introspective lyrical prowess, narrative world-building, excellent song-making/arrangements and a range of other musical qualities. He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice.
What I believe is happening here is this: it seems you haven't liked Kendrick's evolution from “Good Kid Maad City/To Pimp a Butterfly” and don’t particularly like Kendrick as a person/artist at all. Which is absolutely fine. You're perfectly free to not like his voices or find damn boring and gnx/mr morale bad. But there's something that I like to call "chasing the argument" -- where one tries to root their dislike of something/someone in evidence but they’re working backwards from the disdain, resulting in confirmation bias that they then attempt to present as objective. This is why I’d say seeing Kendrick Lamar as "of the Obama Era" is a personal experience of placing him in amber rather than an actual criticism of him because if we were to hinge Kendrick's impact on his political commentaries, his inclusion of the Fox News quotes that “criticised his music” on “Damn” are extremely poignant artefacts of the first Trump Era and “Mr. Morale” included "Auntie Diaries", perhaps the only major rap record of the modern age that attempts a sympathetic understanding of the trans experience, which is an issue that has come to a head decidedly after Obama’s administration.
More evidence of "chasing the argument" explains things like the throwaway footnote that hints how colourism is a contributing factor to the feud, which it very much may be, but it is also the sort of statement that if you're going to mention at all, should probably include a dedicated argument/analysis. You also compare Kendrick to both Taylor Swift and Kanye in order to bolster your points but both comparisons only work on a superficial level. Calling Kendrick an “industry baby” like Taylor Swift dismisses the disparity of factors between not only their race, class and gender but the general level of artistic skill on display within their practices in a way that is perhaps too long to go into in a comment. Suggesting Kendrick will let his fans down like Kanye dismisses the fact a) Kanye still has a scary amount of supporters and b) the two gentlemen are fundamentally different personality-wise, something that you state, but not in a way that, to me, feels anywhere close to an accurate conclusion. You ask, “if the aforementioned questions Kendrick asked on albums like Good Kid and TPAB are indicative of the inner-life of the “real” Kendrick Lamar, in conjunction with other lyrics throughout his records about his fears and anxieties, then Kendrick Lamar seems like a man with profoundly debilitating paranoia, someone whose obvious mental problems combined with his overexposure will likely lead to a Kanye-West-level meltdown.” which is perhaps the most profound example that you have fossilised Kendrick in the Good Kid/TPAB era. The Mr. Morale album speaks about so much of Kendrick’s internal world with so much candour and self-reflection that shows miles, miles more personal growth and self awareness than Kanye has.
Thanks for helping me find the words for times where an argument is being chased, this is the kind of comment that is so truly constructive & well thought out & in a very generous spirit which I love too! This is exactly how I felt reading that …
Or. . .thanks for righting the listing Kendrick ship and resolving any cognitive dissonance I (you) may have experienced after reading such a trenchant critique of a favourite musical artist of mine (yours).
Unrelated but this sentence, “nothing that helps you get clarity on your own mind is wasted time” was something I needed to read today and is now going on a stick note at my desk. Thank you!
i agree with a lot of this but oof, kodak black doesnt just get to “regret” sexually assaulting people and move on. SA is unforgivable. i like kendrick a lot but working with kodak was a terrible decision.
we agree, definitely check out my footnote on “utility of morality”. wanna stress that i’m not defending Kendrick’s decision to include Kodak or work with/shout out Dre, more just alerting the fact that the common argument of “he shouts dre but calls drake a paedophile” flattens Kendrick into one-dimension when he has a pretty consistent practice of trying to give Black men who’ve shown remorse and paid the legal price for their crime a chance (his threatening to take his music off spotify over xxxtentacion is another example). ultimately, he’s just an artist to me, I don’t know him so I don’t like him or dislike him. But I can see his actions and see a consistency to them that other people who dislike him try and say is not there. i don’t think that’s accurate.
sorry i didnt see your footnote! thats fair enough, im just tired of abusive men getting second chances when the survivors will have to live with the trauma they caused. But i see your point though and agree, thanks for your insight.
i'm with you, i think survivors deserve much better reparative practices and its something the state will perhaps never be able to help with. it'll need to come from communal care
i’m sure everything else you have to say was valid but i’d be really careful about the way you frame sexual violence, and “paying the legal price for their crime” as some sort of okay for us to essentially move on and welcome back into cultural and social life. and xxxtentacion showed no remorse btw.
your opening remark, "i'm sure everything else you have to say was valid" makes it sound like you don't intend to fully acknowledge the things i'm actually saying which, with all due respect, seems to be the case as i was very careful to speak *specifically* about kendrick lamar and what *i* have observed to be a pattern of reasoning behind *his* actions.
suggesting i'm saying "its okay for *us* to essentially move on" is a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what i'm saying. nothing i said is an ethical excuse. in fact, the contrary is true. my entire point is that kendrick is flawed and this idea that kendrick thinks he's some morally virtuous figure is a false framing.
so i am not commenting on any collective "us" but it is up to *you* to decide what you want to do about this pattern of reasoning i've identified from kendrick. do even you agree it is a pattern? does it make you dislike him? does it make you wanna withhold support? will you stop listening/patronising his music/going to his shows? do you think he's wrong to give people who've abused others/he may believe have been unfairly wronged by the state some sort of grace/second chance? each of us gets to chose.
perhaps *kendrick's* conduct is igniting a conversation in yourself. what do we do about people who have perpetrated terrible crimes? do we lock them away in zoos and coliseums where we don't have to see them? do we commit them to shameful exile? or should we just subject them to capital punishment? are they unable to change and therefore unworthy of life? what is the right way to deal with such people?
lastly: there was definitely an effort--genuine or performative--where xxxtentacion tried to change towards the end of his life (but also, my inclusion of X is perhaps completely moot because it was actually TDE that threatened to pull music from Spotify, which may have been Top specifically, it may have been agreed by the whole label, and it may not have been about XXX particularly--we don't really know the specifics)
i’m telling you that your comment was an interesting read and i don’t have a big opinion on the whole thing which is why i also liked reading the article. that should not take away from what i am trying to tell you. i did not say anyone was unworthy of life. i am telling you that there are ways of discussing sexual violence which, unconsciously, are extremely dismissive.
your reaction to my comment and your decision to class the heartless, unfeeling and true lack of remorse from xxxtentacion as in fact an “effort” lets me know the framework under which your sexual politics is operating. i am literally subscribed to you, i find what you have to say worth reading so this wasn’t a personal attack. i was just telling you that words can mean things in a way we don’t want to and it has serious potential to harm. that’s all.
I was mentally preparing myself to leave a long ass comment and yours was the first one I saw. You articulated a lot of what I felt and some things I didn’t even realize I was thinking about. And it’s clear you listen to Kendrick. One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn. He said GNX and Mr Morale sucked but didnt state why, so he kind of lost me there because it started to feel more like a personal issue than a broader argument. Having said that, I’m glad people are taking shots like this. It’s good!
"One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn."
I'd go as far to say the author's journey ended *with* 'Damn' as they mention Kendrick's hebrew israelitism makes him "completely fucking insane" and Damn is obv the album where Kendrick declares he's an israelite. my point is mostly that Kendrick didn't stop growing as an artist or person just because certain listeners who enjoyed the commentaries of GKMC/TPAB thought he should've progressed differently.
That the author of this article thinks it can just be taken for granted that Mr. Morale is a bad album is ridiculous. It's one of my favorite records of all time. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough to spend the whole thing listening for hypocrisies. I guess one you've written someone off as a disingenuous pop star, you're off the hook for engaging with their work on its own terms.
Great comment, and excellent observation about working backwards from disdain.
I feel like you can't hope to understand Kendrick at all if you haven't spent plenty of time deep in Mr Morale, which I personally think is his masterpiece (not a popular view, but that album is special to me)
I did not not say not to take in his words as something political, I said:
"He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice."
We can see Kendrick subverted Gil Scott Heron and said "the revolution *will* be televised" and then ended the set that he narratively constructed around himself playing "the great american game" with "TV Off" as a political statement but as I said, I prefer to view Kendrick how he views himself, which is an artist who is not trying to be a political leader, and as an artistic choice, i think it was all a coherent choice for the storytelling of the show.
Aren't you being a bit too charitable? If someone consistently says they don't want their art to be viewed politically, but consistently dons the trappings of a political artist making political statements, I don't see why they ought to be taken at their word
probably. i like kendrick's music and i think he's got some of the best creative aesthetics in the music business. you don't have to be charitable, though. nor do you need to take him at his word.
Sadly I didn’t exit while I could 😂 I got got by the clickbait. And wrote a scatching response only to realize it’s probably a lost cause. “Fucking trash” “DAMN was boring” “This beef is bad for hip hop”
I was holding on to hope for substance… it never came.
I initially was like “man I ain't reading this garbage “ but then thought look, let me put my personal opinion beside and see if maybe I'm being close minded or misunderstanding the articles premise….
the beef being bad for hip hop is where it lost me (though i wasn’t fully “in” anyways). that truly solidified the lack of understanding and context and i couldn’t do it anymore.
“DAMN was boring” that’s definitely an opinion rather than a real argument against the quality of his work. One with which the Pulitzer committee would disagree.
I’m sorry but trying to make an argument about him “being the asshole who collects rent checks” and then citing an article which explains his real-estate portfolio, which includes absolutely NO mention of apartment complexes/multi-family residences in which he’s the active landlord, but is instead a collection of (albeit very expensive) single family residences seems kind of absurd. It’s known that Kendrick has put a significant amount of his own money back into Compton, with no strings (or even his name) attached.
While I agree with the takes about Kendrick not addressing the pedophilia and sexual harassment fully, just targeted towards Drake, this essay was wack. It failed to highlight the impact Kendrick has had on the city of Compton, not just his music, but his influence and funding he has provided. He may have certain bad qualities, however his super bowl performance, and his music, such as his album “DAMN” tells a story that is critical and special to black americans. So if you’re not able to see that, maybe you’re the wrong person to be criticizing music.
isn't he pointing out that kendrick's fixation on the drake feud seems to be hurting hip-hop's popularity as measured by statistics? doesn't sound like a great way to make a buck.
what matters is rap culture, not the money, and Kendrick is ousting a vulture who spent a decade doing cultural appropriation of a half dozen regional sounds while exploiting every artist in his vicinity
kendrick is still a hypocrite but he won't admit it anymore. he's inhaled all the fumes and he thinks he's the greatest of all time. he slaughtered drake out of pique so that he could get on top of the pile and roar, there's nothing admirable about it. i don't have any love for drake, but i have much less love for kodak black. one of the main criticisms in 'not like us' is that drake pals around with sex offenders, it's an utterly hypocritical song and GNX is a self-satisfied album; it's the album of a man whose ego has eaten his art.
I agree with that Kendrick’s political beliefs are quite shallow and are never fully articulated in his music. But this is because he mostly concerns himself with the cultural aspect of how black people are at the center of hip-hop and should be continued to be centered. This is one of the big reasons why his beef with Drake was so important, his disses weren’t just for popularity but to recalibrate who should be centered in rap music and culture and that should be Black Americans. Also, how can you say that DAMN is boring!? And GNX and Mr. Morale is just bad!? Like does Mother I Sober not mean anything to you?
Music criticism from someone who clearly doesn’t know anything about music, always funny to read. Trying to intellectualize a thing you don’t understand from your feelings and comparative listening. Why not just listen to people you like and avoid the ones you don’t, and try not to rationalize your dislike to the rest of us. Leave music criticism to musicians and people with a deep cultural understanding of it. Just because you are intelligent and listen to a lot of rap, doesn’t mean you understand the complexity, history and musical content of what someone like Kendrick is doing, and because of that you are endanger of saying something so stupid like, he sounds like Eminem
This post had a lot of interesting points. I think you lost me with what felt like an emphasis of personal jabs and opinions stated as fact. I thought damn was phenomenal, loved Mr Morale, and GNX was mid. I also didn’t understand the placement of Lamar as a political rapper when he’s constantly said he does not want to be that, and has literally stated in songs, “I am not your savior”
that aside, it’s hard to go against the current, especially on a topic like this where so many people have loved or do love Lamar. Major props for taking a big swing
Just as commentary, I think that the Eminem-style influence you identify in Lamar's music is more accurately associated with his underappreciated background experience in the Midwest speed-rap scene with Tech N9ne and others at the Strange Music label:
Once I heard this, I couldn't unhear it throughout his music.
Excellent commentary overall. Lamar still has moments of brilliance, but has not been able to rediscover the album-level mastery that characterized his earlier works. Whether the cause of this is political change in the US or otherwise is an interesting discussion, but the drop off in overall artistic quality is hard to ignore (even as one savours the incredible flow and tracks still being delivered on a periodic basis).
This really put into words everything I’ve been feeling about Kendrick (I thought DAMN was fun though lol).
It’s also ironic to me that if I actually wanted to go find music that speaks truth to power…I’d be better off listening to Macklemore than Kendrick right now lol.
Very interesting essay. I find a lot of criticisms of Kendrick take on the property of being quite aesthetically appealing while, to me, falling apart with deeper analysis because they tend to project ideas onto Kendrick, like hope, over listening to the actual things he says. For instance, the lyrics of Euphoria are: “this ain't been about critics, not about gimmicks, not about who the greatest, It's always been about love and hate, now let me say I'm the biggest hater, I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress”. With that in mind, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would then say, “the beef is probably more personal than anything”. Kendrick's disdain is multi-layered, you can deduce that much of it is a lot do with protecting the spirit of hip hop from someone who he believes has damaged the art-form that he knows and loves... but he said unequivocally it was personal.
I think calling Kendrick "sanctimonious" relies on two misconceptions: a) he is attempting to be a political/moral figure and b) that Kodak's inclusion on his album means that he's “wrong” for calling Drake a paedophile. I write about the latter more in my piece here (https://www.yoursinigo.com/p/the-utility-of-morality) but in short: Kodak expressed remorse for his past conduct and if we see Mr. Morale as searching for personal redemption, Kodak's inclusion on the album is Kendrick giving him a shot of redemption which is actually a pretty consistent theme for Kendrick as a person. It is honestly a more compelling argument to say that Drake is probably not a paedophile and so Kendrick is wrong for calling him one on such a massive scale because it is not ideal for our general cultural attitudes towards protecting children to make false accusations of that size (or if its true, an international diss song is the entirely wrong way to deal with it.)
The other criticisms of "Kendrick will never hit as hard again because Kendrick was a definitionally Obama-era artist" (something that I've also written about but in tweet form: https://x.com/SaveInigo/status/1777014837270241398) and of him being anachronistic are slightly confusing, especially in the context of Arcade Fire who you say "mistook being called the meaning of “genius” here as dubbing astounding intellect and insight rather than its other usage as being used to dub astounding creativity and intuition”. You seem to insinuate that the bulk of Kendrick's genius relies on the political analysis of the era you’ve deemed his best — which makes me wonder why you made the Arcade Fire comparison at all seeing that the major appeal of Kendrick's music has always been his rapping ability, introspective lyrical prowess, narrative world-building, excellent song-making/arrangements and a range of other musical qualities. He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice.
What I believe is happening here is this: it seems you haven't liked Kendrick's evolution from “Good Kid Maad City/To Pimp a Butterfly” and don’t particularly like Kendrick as a person/artist at all. Which is absolutely fine. You're perfectly free to not like his voices or find damn boring and gnx/mr morale bad. But there's something that I like to call "chasing the argument" -- where one tries to root their dislike of something/someone in evidence but they’re working backwards from the disdain, resulting in confirmation bias that they then attempt to present as objective. This is why I’d say seeing Kendrick Lamar as "of the Obama Era" is a personal experience of placing him in amber rather than an actual criticism of him because if we were to hinge Kendrick's impact on his political commentaries, his inclusion of the Fox News quotes that “criticised his music” on “Damn” are extremely poignant artefacts of the first Trump Era and “Mr. Morale” included "Auntie Diaries", perhaps the only major rap record of the modern age that attempts a sympathetic understanding of the trans experience, which is an issue that has come to a head decidedly after Obama’s administration.
More evidence of "chasing the argument" explains things like the throwaway footnote that hints how colourism is a contributing factor to the feud, which it very much may be, but it is also the sort of statement that if you're going to mention at all, should probably include a dedicated argument/analysis. You also compare Kendrick to both Taylor Swift and Kanye in order to bolster your points but both comparisons only work on a superficial level. Calling Kendrick an “industry baby” like Taylor Swift dismisses the disparity of factors between not only their race, class and gender but the general level of artistic skill on display within their practices in a way that is perhaps too long to go into in a comment. Suggesting Kendrick will let his fans down like Kanye dismisses the fact a) Kanye still has a scary amount of supporters and b) the two gentlemen are fundamentally different personality-wise, something that you state, but not in a way that, to me, feels anywhere close to an accurate conclusion. You ask, “if the aforementioned questions Kendrick asked on albums like Good Kid and TPAB are indicative of the inner-life of the “real” Kendrick Lamar, in conjunction with other lyrics throughout his records about his fears and anxieties, then Kendrick Lamar seems like a man with profoundly debilitating paranoia, someone whose obvious mental problems combined with his overexposure will likely lead to a Kanye-West-level meltdown.” which is perhaps the most profound example that you have fossilised Kendrick in the Good Kid/TPAB era. The Mr. Morale album speaks about so much of Kendrick’s internal world with so much candour and self-reflection that shows miles, miles more personal growth and self awareness than Kanye has.
Thanks for helping me find the words for times where an argument is being chased, this is the kind of comment that is so truly constructive & well thought out & in a very generous spirit which I love too! This is exactly how I felt reading that …
always great to help find the words, glad it resonated
Or. . .thanks for righting the listing Kendrick ship and resolving any cognitive dissonance I (you) may have experienced after reading such a trenchant critique of a favourite musical artist of mine (yours).
Well stated, this was the palette cleanser I needed to make up for the 10 minutes wasted that I’ll never get back
appreciate it bro, i'd say that nothing that helps you get clarity on your own mind is wasted time!
Unrelated but this sentence, “nothing that helps you get clarity on your own mind is wasted time” was something I needed to read today and is now going on a stick note at my desk. Thank you!
i agree with a lot of this but oof, kodak black doesnt just get to “regret” sexually assaulting people and move on. SA is unforgivable. i like kendrick a lot but working with kodak was a terrible decision.
we agree, definitely check out my footnote on “utility of morality”. wanna stress that i’m not defending Kendrick’s decision to include Kodak or work with/shout out Dre, more just alerting the fact that the common argument of “he shouts dre but calls drake a paedophile” flattens Kendrick into one-dimension when he has a pretty consistent practice of trying to give Black men who’ve shown remorse and paid the legal price for their crime a chance (his threatening to take his music off spotify over xxxtentacion is another example). ultimately, he’s just an artist to me, I don’t know him so I don’t like him or dislike him. But I can see his actions and see a consistency to them that other people who dislike him try and say is not there. i don’t think that’s accurate.
sorry i didnt see your footnote! thats fair enough, im just tired of abusive men getting second chances when the survivors will have to live with the trauma they caused. But i see your point though and agree, thanks for your insight.
i'm with you, i think survivors deserve much better reparative practices and its something the state will perhaps never be able to help with. it'll need to come from communal care
i’m sure everything else you have to say was valid but i’d be really careful about the way you frame sexual violence, and “paying the legal price for their crime” as some sort of okay for us to essentially move on and welcome back into cultural and social life. and xxxtentacion showed no remorse btw.
your opening remark, "i'm sure everything else you have to say was valid" makes it sound like you don't intend to fully acknowledge the things i'm actually saying which, with all due respect, seems to be the case as i was very careful to speak *specifically* about kendrick lamar and what *i* have observed to be a pattern of reasoning behind *his* actions.
suggesting i'm saying "its okay for *us* to essentially move on" is a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what i'm saying. nothing i said is an ethical excuse. in fact, the contrary is true. my entire point is that kendrick is flawed and this idea that kendrick thinks he's some morally virtuous figure is a false framing.
so i am not commenting on any collective "us" but it is up to *you* to decide what you want to do about this pattern of reasoning i've identified from kendrick. do even you agree it is a pattern? does it make you dislike him? does it make you wanna withhold support? will you stop listening/patronising his music/going to his shows? do you think he's wrong to give people who've abused others/he may believe have been unfairly wronged by the state some sort of grace/second chance? each of us gets to chose.
perhaps *kendrick's* conduct is igniting a conversation in yourself. what do we do about people who have perpetrated terrible crimes? do we lock them away in zoos and coliseums where we don't have to see them? do we commit them to shameful exile? or should we just subject them to capital punishment? are they unable to change and therefore unworthy of life? what is the right way to deal with such people?
lastly: there was definitely an effort--genuine or performative--where xxxtentacion tried to change towards the end of his life (but also, my inclusion of X is perhaps completely moot because it was actually TDE that threatened to pull music from Spotify, which may have been Top specifically, it may have been agreed by the whole label, and it may not have been about XXX particularly--we don't really know the specifics)
i’m telling you that your comment was an interesting read and i don’t have a big opinion on the whole thing which is why i also liked reading the article. that should not take away from what i am trying to tell you. i did not say anyone was unworthy of life. i am telling you that there are ways of discussing sexual violence which, unconsciously, are extremely dismissive.
your reaction to my comment and your decision to class the heartless, unfeeling and true lack of remorse from xxxtentacion as in fact an “effort” lets me know the framework under which your sexual politics is operating. i am literally subscribed to you, i find what you have to say worth reading so this wasn’t a personal attack. i was just telling you that words can mean things in a way we don’t want to and it has serious potential to harm. that’s all.
This was a fantastic comment, I would encourage you to publish it as a response.
probably gonna pass on that but i’m glad you liked it, bro!
I was mentally preparing myself to leave a long ass comment and yours was the first one I saw. You articulated a lot of what I felt and some things I didn’t even realize I was thinking about. And it’s clear you listen to Kendrick. One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn. He said GNX and Mr Morale sucked but didnt state why, so he kind of lost me there because it started to feel more like a personal issue than a broader argument. Having said that, I’m glad people are taking shots like this. It’s good!
"One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn."
I'd go as far to say the author's journey ended *with* 'Damn' as they mention Kendrick's hebrew israelitism makes him "completely fucking insane" and Damn is obv the album where Kendrick declares he's an israelite. my point is mostly that Kendrick didn't stop growing as an artist or person just because certain listeners who enjoyed the commentaries of GKMC/TPAB thought he should've progressed differently.
That the author of this article thinks it can just be taken for granted that Mr. Morale is a bad album is ridiculous. It's one of my favorite records of all time. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough to spend the whole thing listening for hypocrisies. I guess one you've written someone off as a disingenuous pop star, you're off the hook for engaging with their work on its own terms.
Great comment, and excellent observation about working backwards from disdain.
What a great and thorough comment, kudos
I feel like you can't hope to understand Kendrick at all if you haven't spent plenty of time deep in Mr Morale, which I personally think is his masterpiece (not a popular view, but that album is special to me)
My god, this is smart and well said.
This is such an incredibly well-written response! Thank you for taking the time to write it because it truly put a lot of my thoughts into words
I’ve never had my ideas so well explained without my help.
Subscribed to you (for free for now) off this comment
Kendrick started the show at the SuperBowl by quoting Gil Scott Heron, how are we then not to take in his words as something political?
I did not not say not to take in his words as something political, I said:
"He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice."
We can see Kendrick subverted Gil Scott Heron and said "the revolution *will* be televised" and then ended the set that he narratively constructed around himself playing "the great american game" with "TV Off" as a political statement but as I said, I prefer to view Kendrick how he views himself, which is an artist who is not trying to be a political leader, and as an artistic choice, i think it was all a coherent choice for the storytelling of the show.
Aren't you being a bit too charitable? If someone consistently says they don't want their art to be viewed politically, but consistently dons the trappings of a political artist making political statements, I don't see why they ought to be taken at their word
probably. i like kendrick's music and i think he's got some of the best creative aesthetics in the music business. you don't have to be charitable, though. nor do you need to take him at his word.
Bruh I tried to suffer through this article but could not succeed hahaha
Sadly I didn’t exit while I could 😂 I got got by the clickbait. And wrote a scatching response only to realize it’s probably a lost cause. “Fucking trash” “DAMN was boring” “This beef is bad for hip hop”
I was holding on to hope for substance… it never came.
I initially was like “man I ain't reading this garbage “ but then thought look, let me put my personal opinion beside and see if maybe I'm being close minded or misunderstanding the articles premise….
Nah turns out the shit was garbage after all! 🤣🤣
Same homie. I’ll never get that time back 😔
the beef being bad for hip hop is where it lost me (though i wasn’t fully “in” anyways). that truly solidified the lack of understanding and context and i couldn’t do it anymore.
It's always so obvious when someone is writing from outside the culture!
Exactlyyyyy. Halfway through I knew this person wasn’t one of us lmao
“DAMN was boring” that’s definitely an opinion rather than a real argument against the quality of his work. One with which the Pulitzer committee would disagree.
Noted rap aficionados, the Pulitzer Prize Committee.
compared to anonymous substack losers 😂😂😂😂😂
Ok Sarah
I’m sorry but trying to make an argument about him “being the asshole who collects rent checks” and then citing an article which explains his real-estate portfolio, which includes absolutely NO mention of apartment complexes/multi-family residences in which he’s the active landlord, but is instead a collection of (albeit very expensive) single family residences seems kind of absurd. It’s known that Kendrick has put a significant amount of his own money back into Compton, with no strings (or even his name) attached.
I hate to say it, but I kinda have to see what you look like for me to even begin to take your opinion seriously.
My thoughts exactly 🤷🏽♀️
And therein lies the problem.
this
Ding ding ding
While I agree with the takes about Kendrick not addressing the pedophilia and sexual harassment fully, just targeted towards Drake, this essay was wack. It failed to highlight the impact Kendrick has had on the city of Compton, not just his music, but his influence and funding he has provided. He may have certain bad qualities, however his super bowl performance, and his music, such as his album “DAMN” tells a story that is critical and special to black americans. So if you’re not able to see that, maybe you’re the wrong person to be criticizing music.
so are you against everyone trying to make a buck or is it just if they're black guys?
isn't he pointing out that kendrick's fixation on the drake feud seems to be hurting hip-hop's popularity as measured by statistics? doesn't sound like a great way to make a buck.
what matters is rap culture, not the money, and Kendrick is ousting a vulture who spent a decade doing cultural appropriation of a half dozen regional sounds while exploiting every artist in his vicinity
kendrick is still a hypocrite but he won't admit it anymore. he's inhaled all the fumes and he thinks he's the greatest of all time. he slaughtered drake out of pique so that he could get on top of the pile and roar, there's nothing admirable about it. i don't have any love for drake, but i have much less love for kodak black. one of the main criticisms in 'not like us' is that drake pals around with sex offenders, it's an utterly hypocritical song and GNX is a self-satisfied album; it's the album of a man whose ego has eaten his art.
lol just no
I agree with that Kendrick’s political beliefs are quite shallow and are never fully articulated in his music. But this is because he mostly concerns himself with the cultural aspect of how black people are at the center of hip-hop and should be continued to be centered. This is one of the big reasons why his beef with Drake was so important, his disses weren’t just for popularity but to recalibrate who should be centered in rap music and culture and that should be Black Americans. Also, how can you say that DAMN is boring!? And GNX and Mr. Morale is just bad!? Like does Mother I Sober not mean anything to you?
Music criticism from someone who clearly doesn’t know anything about music, always funny to read. Trying to intellectualize a thing you don’t understand from your feelings and comparative listening. Why not just listen to people you like and avoid the ones you don’t, and try not to rationalize your dislike to the rest of us. Leave music criticism to musicians and people with a deep cultural understanding of it. Just because you are intelligent and listen to a lot of rap, doesn’t mean you understand the complexity, history and musical content of what someone like Kendrick is doing, and because of that you are endanger of saying something so stupid like, he sounds like Eminem
spot on. glad to have read this.
This post had a lot of interesting points. I think you lost me with what felt like an emphasis of personal jabs and opinions stated as fact. I thought damn was phenomenal, loved Mr Morale, and GNX was mid. I also didn’t understand the placement of Lamar as a political rapper when he’s constantly said he does not want to be that, and has literally stated in songs, “I am not your savior”
that aside, it’s hard to go against the current, especially on a topic like this where so many people have loved or do love Lamar. Major props for taking a big swing
shut up white woman
I hate it here. You are the worst.
Just as commentary, I think that the Eminem-style influence you identify in Lamar's music is more accurately associated with his underappreciated background experience in the Midwest speed-rap scene with Tech N9ne and others at the Strange Music label:
https://www.complex.com/music/a/shawn-setaro/kendrick-lamar-became-star-help-from-tech-n9ne-strange-music
Once I heard this, I couldn't unhear it throughout his music.
Excellent commentary overall. Lamar still has moments of brilliance, but has not been able to rediscover the album-level mastery that characterized his earlier works. Whether the cause of this is political change in the US or otherwise is an interesting discussion, but the drop off in overall artistic quality is hard to ignore (even as one savours the incredible flow and tracks still being delivered on a periodic basis).
This really put into words everything I’ve been feeling about Kendrick (I thought DAMN was fun though lol).
It’s also ironic to me that if I actually wanted to go find music that speaks truth to power…I’d be better off listening to Macklemore than Kendrick right now lol.