"To Pimp A Butterfly": The Review, Pt. One

"I really hope they don't take him from us, even though it seems inevitable now."

Those are the thoughts that race through my mind as I ponder how to approach describing the impact already taking place from Kendrick Lamar's groundbreaking album, "To Pimp A Butterfly". I've been absorbing the album virtually every day for the last 3 weeks since it came out and I've debated if I should just find all of my favorite moments in the album and list them or to do a sweeping, all-inclusive review. I choose the latter, even though I love lists. On the topic of lists... Let me just say: George Clinton, Snoop Dogg (or Lion), Bilal, Pharrell, Flying Lotus, Ron Isley, Sounwave, Rapsody, and Lesane Parish Crooks all on the same album?! Are you kidding me?!

I waited a couple days to listen to this because I knew it was going to be a heavy, relentless journey. Based off of his interviews in the months leading up to its release (XXL & Hot 97) and the two initial songs released ("i" and "Blacker The Berry") I knew he was coming from a completely new and deeper level that couldn't be dismissed by any interested, thinking music lover and/or social scientist. I was in Dallas, TX at my cousin's gigantic house laying around with some free time (before my mad dash to SXSW continued the next day) when I first decided to take the quantum leap into Mr. Duckworth's world. I knew I needed at least 80 minutes of uninterrupted time to allow the experience to fully hit me. Still, I was not completely prepared to go as deep as the album was about to take me. It has a way of doing that to people.

I was going to wait longer to listen, but someone I know and trust musically said Kendrick had a "stupid f***ing song" called "For Free?". Knowing K. Dot's current focus and the legacy he's already left with deeply spiritual and conceptually complex bodies of work, I knew it was not possible for him to make anything "stupid" at this point (after discussing the metaphoric roles of that song, said person no longer thinks it's stupid). Once I laid out and let the sounds soak in, I knew from the moment that the bassline of "Wesley's Theory" hit that I was strapped in for one hell of a ride that wasn't going to let me go.

This is not an album where you can really say there's a best song because there are so many important, intertwined, shifting moments in each one that you really have to ride the wave of the entire project to understand even a portion of the layers which include countless literary, musical, cinematic, historical, and religious references. This is the album that people of my generation and those before us thought would never happen. We didn't think anyone could do this anymore; especially not right now. There's so much synthetic trash out there passing off as the standard of greatness and then "King Kunta" himself comes screaming into your life with what I AM now convinced is The Most Important Album in the History of Hip-Hop...

EVER. There, I said it. I have wrestled with this designation, but after sitting very closely with "To Pimp A Butterfly" - relating my thoughts and listening to the insights of some of my most intelligent, credible, and talented friends with a far-reaching collective knowledge of hip-hop, jazz, soul music, and funk...I have no problem standing by this declaration. Kendrick's new gift to the world is not just the most important album in hip-hop or the entire music industry right now because it completely revived the hope of a generation in this genre on a mainstream level and because the production and lyrical dexterity are off the charts...(actually at the top of the charts; TPAB debuted at #1 on the Billoard 200 and stayed there the following week). The depth, passion, range, honesty, vulnerability, and healing properties of this album are far more crucial to the times than the scope of entertainment will allow.

This man and his team have created THE Soundtrack.

As Michael Jackson said,"This Is It".

"To Pimp A Butterfly" speaks to the deep depression, identity crisis, trust issues, racial tension, self-reflection/self-denial, disappointment, razor-thin hope, gut-level faith and the violent urge to be completely FREE that is permeating the mass consciousness of society today. Gil Scott-Heron most famously stated, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". This stands true today. Even with all the upheavals and violence which are often co-opted, curtailed, misrepresented, misguided, and crippled (i.e. Occupy Movement and Police Brutality protests) that are being consistently shown online and on TV, there is nothing that can replace the true "Evolution of a Revolutionary" required of those in the know for these challenging and uncertain times.

"Alright" (produced by Pharrell Williams & Sounwav) is such a relief near the middle of the album right after Kendrick pours his distraught, drunken heart/ego out on "u". There has not been (in recent musical history) such a simple, yet layered, message of semi-delusional reassurance that felt so welcomed and good. This transition in the album is like being rescued from a violent shootout or home invasion; there is a sense of exhaustion, deep loss, and barely intelligible pain that comes with standing on the brink of insanity...only to be momentarily soothed with the turn up vibe of "Alright"; followed by the ever-sinister, deceptively cozy dream sequence of "For Sale?".

Never before has Louis Cypher aka Samael aka Set aka Lucifer aka Satan been embodied in such a free-flowing, fun and entrancing fashion. Is Lucy a woman? Is it a man? It's a seductive energy that persists despite your desire to break from its clutches. It's the choice we all have when we are forced to choose between moving in the light of awareness or lurking in the shadows of ignorance/cognitive dissonance. The song "For Sale?" does not make as much sense if you haven't had the patience to flow with him from the beginning until that point. We are watching a master at work, who is unafraid to unravel himself before the masses and admit that that he is partially enslaved by his own imperfection and attempts to avoid that Reality....like the rest of us.

The album's title was originally going to be "2 Pimp A Caterpillar". Look at the acronym. What a way to pay homage to one of your heroes. One of our lost leaders. The poetry weaving throughout the album, which initially seems like a series of disjointed interludes, eventually builds into an emotionally overwhelming pinnacle of revelation, ancestor communication, prophecy, introspection, spiritual expansion, and mental elevation. This album is so important right now because it unabashedly puts the concept of RESPONSIBILITY before the listener, who is transformed into an accomplice in the mission that stands before us all.

If there was ever a poetic, deeply musical and socially relevant wake up call about how close we are to the abyss of our own existence and an irreversible breaking point, this would be the definitive example. This album should be taught in schools; both high school and college level. You are not just listening to some rapper from Compton; this is a visionary old soul caught inside a 27 year-old melanin-rich body.

The conversation that this incredible opus not only explores, but sparks within its audience is practically unprecedented in the context of current popular culture. There has simply not been a more galvanizing, inspiring, educational and challenging album in the history of hip-hop on a mass-produced level since "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill". Ms. Hill made a classic (which can never be touched), but TPAB is on another level and it wouldn't be fair to compare them with the same criteria. There was so much singing on "The Miseducation..." that you can't just call it a hip-hop album. "To Pimp..." is unmistakenly hip-hop. While delving into other genres, it leaves no questions about which one is the primary weapon of choice.

I may have to write a separate post solely about the kind of conversations I've had with people about this project; especially amongst those of us labelled as "African American", "Black", "People of Color", "Melanated", "Urban", "Minority", "Moorish", "Original", "Nigga", "Nigger", "Negus", "Naga", etc.

There are albums that we may love more for a number of reasons, but "To Pimp A Butterfly" (in its unbridled Blackness, spiritual humility, timeliness and uncompromising strength) is a jaw-dropping game-changer that many are truly not prepared to fully understand. Ready or not, we are at a time in both national and global history where we have come to the limits of what we can sustain as a planetary family for much longer.

One of the questions underlying this psychological roller coaster is: How much further can we go into the realm of destruction and superficiality before it's all over?

This album is a historically significant document that I look forward to showing and explaining to my children's children. I am nearly brought to tears every time I finish this trip through unfiltered truth (sometimes I wonder what he was saying that they WOULDN'T let on the album if they let him say all that!). This is bigger than any one tragedy or triumph. There are no false hopes or empty promises here; just pure honesty and increasing transparency. Kendrick Lamar is talking like he knows he's about to die.

He's talking like he knows we don't have much time left.

He's talking like...a butterfly.

To be continuted...