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kelvin-loves-music · 3 years

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TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY - KENDRICK LAMAR REVIEW

INTRO

I was sitting around thinking of my next album to review and just procrastinating mostly, which is a horrible habit I have. This album has been on my mind for so long because of the significance and meaning behind it and what I feel has done to rap as a genre. It's a great album and it's just so different than any other album I have listened to. I don't think anybody can replicate this except for Kendrick. So let's skip the intros my name is Kelvin and this is a review on To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

REVIEW

Where do I even begin? I think just from the start I guess. Released on March 15th 2015, again, 2015 was an amazing year for music. The intro, "Wesley's Theory" is just legendary, the production, the lyrics, the Boris Gardiner sample with the “Every nigga is a starrrrr”, just beautiful. Then the narrating, explaining the butterfly breaking out the cocoon with a strong “HIT ME”. Thundercat's bass sounds heavenly, it's so bubbly and warpy, that's the only way I can really describe it. Can we talk about Thundercat’s bass skills? He's really one of the best bassists I have heard in this millenium! Kendricks soft soothing hook gets stuck in my head everytime I listen to this track. Kendrick spitting about being a new hit in the rap scene with his last album "Good Kid,M.A.A.d city" proves he will stay a household name for years to come. He is every white boys favorite rapper along with Eminem and Logic of course. The hook of the song basically explains the overall main theme of the album, a rapper being used by the industry. Calling the rap game “his first girlfriend”, it was true love at first but now turned into a lustful relationship just used for a nut. Moving on to the first verse it holds a lot more meaning and explaining the main theme in further detail, young black artists who had dreams and aspirations in the music industry but are basically "pimped" by their labels and used for monetary gain.

Thundercat with his soft vocals contrast from the first verse singing "We should never gave niggas money. Go back home, money, go back home". Which is right because when niggas get money they're gonna do nigga activities, buying cars, jewelry and everything that comes with the modern rapper today. In the perspective of the rich white who has "worked hard for their things" they see the average rich nigga as a lazy, untalented, useless person with no morals and no work ethic because they didn't have to "struggle like they did". Somewhat true, but what they forget is most white people are set from the beginning to the end of their lives. They forget about their generational wealth, privilege, and the feeling of knowing everything will be fine in life. After another hook, Dr. Dre interjects and brings in another theme of the album. When you have power and money, the hard part about it is keeping this power. There will be people who will want pieces and percentages in exchange for the best things in life, like fancy cars, lavish houses and things of the like. Forcing you to lose sight of yourself and soon losing it all because of how deep you were in the lavish, rich lifestyle. In the verse after the break, Kendrick elaborates more on it with a character named "Uncle Sam" offering him the best of the best thinking this is just an average nigga who got lucky and will get scammed before he even turns 35. The people who benefit the most from Kendrick's name will not be himself but the people who help him along his way. The business men, the shady record labels, the works. This just the first song and there's already so much juiciness in it. Gotta move on before this turns into a long ass William Shakespeare paper. Shout out Wesley Snipes.

Kendricks lyrics > William Shakespeare's life.

"This dick ain't free.” Everything is money, even dicks? Starting with a awesome saxophone leading to a harmonizing choir, then I'm getting demeaned and bullied by a sexy girl. What can be better about this song? In all seriousness the girl yelling at us is basically America and how they've been disrespecting and attacking black people since the beginning of this shit country. Black people have limited paths in fame; you can be a rapper or a sports star, maybe an actor if you're attractive but that's really it. America isn't satisfied with your money unless you have one of those careers. This fast rap, rhythm heavy and hard production will be so fast, it will go over your head the first few listens, hell maybe even the first 20 listens! But basically, the political commentary behind this is: America eats while black people get leftovers. Men have to pay to get into a girls pants but Kendrick’s fighting back against that, buy him a meal to get into his strong 9 inches and how hard he has worked to be in the spot he is in now. At the end the girl says she will get her “Uncle Sam” to fuck him up, meaning if he keeps trying to step out of line, the government will get involved and fuck his ass up in debt. The girl also says he ain't no king but next track is called "King Kunta" soooo who's lying here? There's more to it but again, don't wanna bore you with witty political commentary because I love this album but hate politics.

Moving on to "King Kunta", yo this song sounds good but it kinda falls short to me. I feel like Kendrick should've formatted it better, there's like too many pauses in the actual verses. I think the chorus is awesome and should set a tone for the song, but I don't think it flows well when he says a line, pauses, then another line, pause, then another line. It's just not satisfying my ears. Nonetheless that's like the only complaint I have for the song. The guitar solo near the end is something I didn't even know was needed in a song like this, but without it, I think it still would've been perfect. This song is such a victory lap type of song, you would play this after you just achieved something you really wanted. I feel songs like this are what establishes an artist like Kendrick, setting him apart from any other rapper. Kendrick puts deep meaning into rhythm heavy, melody driven songs like this. Kendrick is just a genius, I gotta suck his dick for second. Like bro he just sounds so good and comforting and it's crazy how timeless an album like this is. Fuck slavery, shout out Kunta Kinte and fuck a Toby.

"I remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence"

(The start of Kendricks poem, being told to Tupac.) Man living in the ghetto sucks dick :/. The message behind all these songs just got me thinking about life. I think I'm gonna stop going song to song and just give my full opinion on this album because there's a lot of songs and I kinda got bored of writing. I just didn't know how to start. But now that we got the theme and narrative on this album, I think it builds a lot of self esteem and self love, especially with the song "i". This album just wants us to be more socially aware and think more about the situation we are in. But only for people that are actually willing to listen.

This album has so many hits back to back that there will be a song or two with strong meaning, and it will just fall on deaf ears because it just sounds good. I think many rappers should be writing like this, especially conscious rappers. Not exactly copy, or try to do something like this, just be more planned out and make it more beautiful than just fast rap about how you used to be broke or didn't have enough growing up, expecting you to feel something. This album will teach something, this album will give a you a new perspective on life, this album will help you no matter in what situation you're in or where you are in your life. If you can think and have feelings, listen to this once, you’ll come back to it. First listen might just be a vibe, next few listens you'll catch a word or two that will make you think, and then the next ten listens you'll be researching it day in and day out because of the amount of content in it. Kendrick came into this game with so much energy and love, and with his ideologies and thoughts. Everyone should listen to it no matter who they are and give it a fair thought and opinion. I am tired, I get tired a lot nowadays. Maybe it will be a while until my next review.

I already got tired typing like 4 songs in, but only because I didn't want you to get bored. Again, Kendrick came with so much energy and with his newest album being "DAMN", it makes me wonder, when will he get tired? This album has gorgeous, dreamy, psychedelic production, and jumpy flows, and I think all the songs can be deeply analyzed and taken part in their own ways.

RATING

I give it a 9/10, My name is Kelvin and I still love you so much.

Top 5 songs has to be

5. Institutionalized

4. These Walls

3. King Kunta

2. i

1. Wesley’s Theory

Honorable mentions: “u”, “The Blacker The Berry”, “Alright”

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strink-family · 5 years

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I normally post my rants on my other blog but...

Saying these things clearly don't change anything, don't make it better, don't make people think, but I need to do this again.

Scrolling through blogs I follow, and my own blog where I reblog stuff, I see TONS of art. Of course I like the art. But often I think one of two things.

The first thing is, "Why can't I draw like that?"

Every day I see a ton of art for the fandoms I'm in. Very often I look at it and think, "Wow, that's amazing!" as everyone does. Then after awhile I think, "I wish I could draw that good."

I get envious of artists. I'm never happy enough with my art. I try super hard on my drawings but it's never good enough. Never. I never look at one of my drawings and think, "Man, I'm happy with this piece!" I only ever think, "Ugh. Why can't I draw better?!" when I look at my art.

Then I see artwork by other artists and I'm blown away. All the artists I see are so talented, so amazing, they truly have a gift. And I realize how truly unskilled I am at art, especially compared to them. I know no matter how hard I try, I'll never be even a good artist, let alone even measurable to the other artists I admire.

I love to draw. I wish I was actually good at it. Which makes me upset enough, but seeing all these artists 100x more talented than I'll ever be, and knowing I won't amount to anything makes it hurt more.

I work so hard on my art, and wonder if it truly is for naught. Considering I'm never satisfied with my art and nobody even pays attention to it, I wonder whether I should give up art, because I clearly won't get anywhere.

Which brings us to the second thing I think, which is, "I wish more people liked my art."

Despite me not being happy with my art, I still want people to like it. Despite not being a good artist, I still want my hard work to be recognized.

Those drawings I just posted the other day--despite their low quality. Took four days. Four long days. And nobody even cares about them.

Nobody cares about any of my art. Or me, even.

My art never gets notes. I see artists get hundreds upon hundreds of notes on even rough sketches, meanwhile I spend hours on a detailed drawing and get a measly four notes on it.

I don't know why, but I always feel the need to be validated by others. Plus making others happy makes me happy. I post my art because I want people to like it, and knowing others like it makes me happy. Also I feel like what I do isn't worth anything if others don't like it.

Which I feel all the time. Because nobody pays attention to my creations.

People enjoy reading my fanfics, which is...nice, I guess. I enjoy writing. But I like to draw more, and honestly would prefer my art to get more attention than my writing.

Part of me doesn't understand why nobody likes my art, but the other part of me knows it's because I'm untalented and won't ever be good. Why even like art that's as bad as mine?

Sometimes I'm proud of my art. Like my most recent art post. Of course I think those drawings could be better. Of course they didn't come out how I wanted. But I did work really hard on them, and they came out surprisingly well, better than I thought.

But nobody cares about it. Nobody's looked at it.

When I rant about these things, nobody pays attention, whether online or real life. I post these rants a lot, moreso on my Wattpad than here, but rarely do I get responses.

In real life this happens as well. Once I sat in the corner of a classroom, sobbing into my knees. Two people stared at me, I heard one mutter, "I think Strink is crying," but they didn't even try to make me feel better. Sometimes I'd be sent to a counselor to talk about these things, and they wouldn't be of any help. I did most of the talking. I was surprised they didn't try to help me more, considering it is kinda their JOB.

Sometimes also I rant to my friends about this. On occasion my friends rant to me, and I want to be there for them and help them, even just a little. But they don't treat me with the same respect. I rant to them about my pain in hopes they'll try to help me.

They never do.

A couple years back I sent an email to a bunch of my friends talking about how much pain I was in. Most didn't respond. Only one did. But this friend did the complete opposite of try to help me.

Allow me to supply a visual.

Their meme-ified response made it hurt even worse. Knowing my friends didn't even care about helping, and one of them seemed to want to hurt me more.

Sometimes I wonder if there's even a point to ranting. Nobody even tried to help me.

I'm aware that nothing anyone can say could make me feel better like that, I'm aware it could take years and I may never actually escape this pain. But knowing someone cares enough to even try to help me. And while the help won't restore me completely, it would still help out a little, and make me feel better for awhile.

But people don't care about me enough to help. Not even my friends. They don't even try.

Nobody tries. Nobody cares.

I know I'm useless. I know I'm worthless. There's no point in me ranting, or spending so much time drawing, trying to get people to like my work, because nothing will come out of it.

Nobody will care about me.

Nobody will like my art.

Maybe I should stop trying. There's no point.

I don't know what I could've done to deserve this pain, but I hate it. I want someone to like my art. I want someone to care about me.

But not even that will happen.

I'm an insignificant person. I don't matter. Nothing about me matters.

#art #my art #depression #rants #pain #drawing #strink's confessions

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