Kendrick Lamar | To Pimp A Butterfly

[Deleted]

Due out in September.

[think pink.]

Yasss

[raprulestheworld]

Mar 2, 2014 10:56:09 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

Due out in September.

Really??? How do you know?

[Deleted]

Mar 2, 2014 14:25:56 GMT -5 raprulestheworld said:

Mar 2, 2014 10:56:09 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

Due out in September.

Really??? How do you know?

Billboard

[raprulestheworld]

Mar 2, 2014 14:40:58 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

Mar 2, 2014 14:25:56 GMT -5 raprulestheworld said:

Really??? How do you know?

Billboard

Oh really? Thanks. I'll coppin 100 copies fa sho. As well, it better win every Grammy imaginable this time. ;)

[Live Your Life]

Turn the Page: When Kendrick Lamar delivered a classic with good kid, m.A.A.d city, nobody saw it coming. Now that the whole world is watching, Can he outdo himself?

[Deleted]

Love this.


https%3A//soundcloud.com/revolttv-2/kendrick-lamar-never-catch-me-feat-flying-lotus

[SHOOTER]

https%3A//soundcloud.com/newagehiphop-nahh/flying-lotus-never-catch-me-feat-kendrick-lamar

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Will Kendrick's album have the Jay Rock single Pay For It (featuring Canadian singer/songwriter Chantal!) on it also?

[SHOOTER]

[tamed09]

Dude just did an untitled song live and completely killed it...this sophomore album is going to be incredible

[music89]

Dec 17, 2014 2:11:45 GMT -5 tamed09 said:

Dude just did an untitled song live and completely killed it...this sophomore album is going to be incredible

www.dailymotion.com/video/k1LxnXZ4aT1Ojo9D9gB?start=7

[Live Your Life]

Billboard Cover: Kendrick Lamar on Ferguson, Leaving Iggy Azalea Alone and Why 'We're in the Last Days'

Most of Kendrick Lamar's days begin -- or maybe end -- around 5 a.m., when the 27-year-old king of West Coast rap comes home from the recording studio. He lives in a three-level condo not far away from where he grew up in Compton, Los Angeles, although he could easily buy a much nicer home. "I could afford a lot of things," says Lamar with a laugh. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself in a mansion." On those early mornings he lies down, his head still spinning with ideas from the session. "It's hard to fall asleep," he says. "I pop right back up -- my brain is still working."

Eventually, Lamar drifts off for "a nice little nap." He wakes for an 11 a.m. workout -- "sprints and jogging, penitentiary push-ups, things like that" -- then naps for another hour or two. If he doesn't have other obligations, he passes his afternoon listening to music (recently, Marvin Gaye and Rick James) and jotting down ideas for lyrics. Throughout the day, he snacks on Fruity Pebbles, and around 9 p.m., departs for the studio, to work until sunrise: "The vampires are already there, waiting for the ideas," he says.

Lamar introduced his "vampires" -- a live band of soulful studio pros including bassist Thundercat, percussionist Bilal, singer Anna Wise and saxophonist Terrace Martin -- in December, when he performed on the final week of The Colbert Report. Kendrick used the prime spot (Colbert's second-to-last night before departing for CBS) to debut a jazzy, untitled track produced by French underground veteran Astronote. It's unlikely to even make the final cut of his feverishly anticipated new album due out in the first half of 2015.

"I just like the energy" of the song, says Lamar. "I didn't go on there to sell a single. I just did what I felt." Such is the prerogative of Kendrick Lamar, widely hailed as hip-hop's savior in a period when few rappers seem committed to art for art's sake. While image-conscious leading MCs like Drake and Nicki Minaj competitively hone their craft and tally hits, Lamar seems intent on transcending what he calls the "sport" of rap: "I pride myself on writing now rather than rapping," he says. "My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work, rather than just a 16-bar verse."

For this, Lamar has been lionized by pop-culture authorities ranging from Chris Rock, who called him one of top five MCs of all time, to Taylor Swift, who recently told Billboard, "I wish I was best friends with Kendrick Lamar, and I'm not." In contrast to Compton's first superstar, N.W.A., Lamar took a novelistic approach on his 2012 debut, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City -- less Boyz in the Hood, more Catcher in the Rye. Certified platinum, it hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200. "I know when I'm listening to Kendrick Lamar that each word was put there for a reason," says Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds, who performed with Lamar at the 2014 Grammys. "A lot of thought goes into it." Says John Janick, chairman/CEO of Interscope, which has a joint-venture deal with Top Dawg Entertainment, Lamar's label: "Kendrick pulls culture toward him. He doesn't mirror it."

Sitting in a small dressing room at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, wearing red slippers, Lamar is polite but guarded. He seems flattered, in his low-key-slash-philosophical way, that Swift -- who has called his track "Backseat Freestyle" her personal theme song -- wishes the two were besties. "I thought she just liked the song. That's a beautiful thing, Taylor Swift enjoying that song and knowing the words."

The first single off Lamar's new album -- which he says he has already named, although he won't share the title -- "I," peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 after its release in September. But its hypnotic old-school groove (on loan from The Isley Brothers' "That Lady") mapped out new territory for Lamar. It also earned him two Grammy nominations, for best rap song and best rap performance. And he teased further ambitions when he performed on Saturday Night Live in November, wearing black contact lenses that evoked Method Man and a riot of braids that paid tribute to Ol' Dirty Bastard ("He was an individual -- his hair was crazy, no matter what he had on"). "I don't want people to take away how cute I look, or how the light is shining off my chain," says Lamar. "I want you to take away a great-ass performance."

Like Barack Obama, Lamar is an introvert with an extrovert's job. "I've been called a recluse," he concedes. "There's definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone." He rarely is seen in the clubs, he doesn't drink a lot or smoke weed, and he has been with his girlfriend, Whitney Alford, since they were both in high school. (She's also in her late 20s.) She has been spotted with Lamar at the Grammys and in South Africa, and is so at ease sassing him that she joked about him being "cheap" in front of a New York Times reporter. "I wouldn't even call her my girl," he says. "That's my best friend. I don't even like the term that society has put in the world as far as being a companion -- she's somebody I can tell my fears to."

Lamar spent much of his childhood on the streets, and he's cagey about the trouble he might've gotten into. "Oh, man, I won't be able to say that on record. I got into some things, but God willing, he had favoritism over me and my spirit." He also has been treated unfairly by the cops -- "plenty of times. All the time." Asked about the high-profile killings of African-Americans by police in 2014, from Ferguson, Mo., to Staten Island, he says, "I wish somebody would look in our neighborhood knowing that it's already a situation, mentally, where it's f---ked up. What happened to [Michael Brown] should've never happened. Never. But when we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don't start with just a rally, don't start from looting -- it starts from within." Lamar, who has said that he wasn't raised devoutly religious, fingers the small figure of Christ dangling from a chain around his neck. "We're in the last days, man -- I truly in my heart believe that. It's written. I could go on with Biblical situations and things my grandma told me. But it's about being at peace with myself and making good with the people around me."

Surprisingly for such a hyperliterate lyricist, Lamar is not much of a reader, saying that he mostly learns by talking to people from different walks of life. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands out for him from his high school reading, though. "What do you want your legacy to be at the end of the day?" he says, describing what the book taught him. "Going back and looking at all the great leaders, I tend to put that in my music the same way Martin Luther King did."

Lamar's parents moved to Compton from the South Side of Chicago before he was born. They hoped to escape the violence in Chicago, not realizing they had found another neighborhood plagued by gangs. Lamar remembers his family -- he's the oldest of four kids -- relying on food stamps and getting kicked out of their tiny apartment when he was about 8 (the property had been sold) and having to live in a hotel for six months. "2Pac had just passed," recalls Lamar. "My uncle was in jail, and we was in a hotel. My moms never owned a house until I was able to afford it for her." (Lamar recently bought a four-bedroom home in Eastvale, an hour east of L.A., as a gift for a family member, although he won't specify whom.)

Lamar quit drinking and smoking weed when he was 16 or 17. "Teenagers don't get it -- we selfish. Go drink, go smoke, go get f---ed up," he remembers. "Why did I do these things? Because I was brought up around it? It damn sure was in the household. I said, 'I know what happens to my family and certain friends when they get drunk and they smoke. They get out of their minds, they get violent. And that's in my blood.' I have little sips on special occasions, but getting all the way out of my mind may not be a good idea." Those insights inspired his first hit (No. 17 on the Hot 100), the harrowing "Swimming Pool (Drank)": "You're like me, making excuse that your relief/Is in the bottom of the bottle and the greenest indo leaf."

Lamar got serious about rapping around the same time he cooled out on partying. "Before finding music, I didn't have too many aspirations," he says. "I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do. Because that's all you see in the four-block radius." But as a teen, after he started rhyming, he still set his sights too low: "I wanted to go back to the neighborhood and say, 'I got signed.' F--- putting an album out, f--- selling records, f--- being on TV. All I wanted to do is put my name on the dotted line."

"I was his hype man," says Schoolboy Q, a Top Dawg Entertainment rapper whose success followed Lamar's. "I saw his first check for a show: $4,000. We thought that was the most money in the world."

In 2011, Lamar signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath label. Recognition truly arrived in 2013, with his incendiary guest verse on Big Sean's "Control." Lamar called out 11 rappers -- including Drake, J. Cole and Big Sean himself -- declaring, "I got love for you all, but I'm trying to murder you n---as." The verse inspired dozens of response tracks and seemed to bother Drake in particular. "Drake is definitely a great artist in this world," Lamar now says. Then he grins. "I'm a great artist in my world." (Lamar has collaborated with acts from Kid Cudi to Foster the People, recently quoting $250,000 to record lyrics on a track.)

One highly debated rapper Lamar refuses to knock, even playfully: Iggy Azalea. "She's doing her thing," he says. "Let her. People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing, continue to rock it, because obviously God wants you here." Lamar was similarly gracious in 2014, when he got shut out at the Grammys after earning seven nominations. Macklemore beat him out for best new artist and best rap album, then texted Lamar an apology for doing so (which he also posted to Instagram). Lamar called Macklemore "a genuine dude," adding, "I wish him much success."

"That's not my overall goal," says Lamar of winning awards. "I appreciate them recognizing me. It's best to just go and enjoy the festivities."

Lamar says that "the end is in sight" with his unfinished album, which is bittersweet for him. "My enjoyment is creating the music," he explains. "Once it gets pressed up, with bar codes on it, then it's not really fun anymore." The musicians who joined him on Colbert constitute the core of his vampire crew. "These are guys I've been around for years, in the L.A. music circuit," he says. "This wasn't a situation where somebody put us together. When you're playing instruments, all that stuff comes from the soul. It's real individuals pushing these sounds out. I get that same impact when I push the words out behind it."

Even if the untitled song from Colbert never resurfaces, it shows the breadth of Lamar's ambition, and the crossroads where he stands. Does he want to be Jay Z -- who famously declared himself "a business, man" -- or a self-styled radical, like Nas? Does he plan on dominating the game, or escaping it through art? "I" could be interpreted either way: It's an affirmation of self-belief in even the hardest of times, with a chorus chant of "I love myself."

"That's hard to say every time you wake up in the morning," says Lamar, who wrote the lyric to lift himself up during a period of self-doubt. He leans forward conspiratorially. "That's a psychological trick I wanted to play on myself. Now that I put this song in the atmosphere, what's going to happen? I have to perform it every night for the next three years when we go on tour. Every time I'm in a weird mood or something goes on at home that I can't handle, I've got to perform it anyway."

[Deleted]

I find it very interesting that so many male rappers have found the time to tell the internet to leave Iggy Azalea alone and defend the merit of her work. Where were they when the internet was ripping Nicki Minaj apart for her cartoonish voices back in 2012? Where were they when the internet collectively shamed her for her Anaconda single artwork and video? Female rappers from Kim to Nicki to Trina to Azealia are slandered every day online but not so much as a peep comes from any of these people who find it of the utmost importance to tell everyone to be nice to Amethyst.

Also: Sigh @ his statements regarding Ferguson. What a disappointing thing to say.

[Linnethia Monique]

Jan 9, 2015 16:59:02 GMT -5 @soblu said:

I find it very interesting that so many male rappers have found the time to tell the internet to leave Iggy Azalea alone and defend the merit of her work. Where were they when the internet was ripping Nicki Minaj apart for her cartoonish voices back in 2012? Where were they when the internet collectively shamed her for her single artwork and video? Female rappers from Kim to Nicki to Trina to Azealia are slandered every day online but not so much as a peep comes from any of these people who find it of the utmost importance to tell everyone to be nice to Amethyst.

Also: Sigh @ his statements regarding Ferguson. What a disappointing thing to say.

GURL BYE! WHY YOU MAD?! CAUSE HER WHITE P#SSY POPS SEVERLY AND YOURS DON'T?!

[Deleted]

Azealia:

There are still young black kids in our public schools being indoctrinated with the same **** they pumped into my head. Becoming an adult and doing my own research has really opened my eyes and I get upset to know that once on the other side of feeling like black people aren’t **** because that’s what America and my social studies textbook taught me. I really pray for the minds of the urban youth, I really do because I was once on the side of feeling I wasn’t owed anything. HOW DARE YOU open ur face to a white publication and tell them that we don’t respect ourselves…. Speak for your fucking self. There are things in society that benefit a select few of us. fine…. But don’t put down the rest by saying they don’t respect themselves. Lol do you know about the generational effects of poverty, racism and discrimination? When we don’t respect ourselves how can we expect them to respect us” dumbest shit I’ve ever heard a black man say.

[allow that]

Jan 9, 2015 16:59:02 GMT -5 @soblu said:

Where were they when the internet collectively shamed her for her single artwork and video?

Because a video emulating death camps is the same as Iggy making some Flo Rida-esque pop songs...

[Deleted]

Jan 9, 2015 19:21:10 GMT -5 allow that said:

Jan 9, 2015 16:59:02 GMT -5 @soblu said:

Where were they when the internet collectively shamed her for her single artwork and video?

Because a video emulating death camps is the same as Iggy making some Flo Rida-esque pop songs...

No, I meant the Anaconda video/single cover! My mistake. Fuhrer Minaj gets no love from me for that Only mess.

But when everyone was calling Nicki a bad example for their daughters, saying she had "taken it too far" and calling her a desperate whore...where was Kendrick to say "She's doing what God put her here to do."

[Deleted]

I am of two minds here one is that I believe everyone has their story to tell and Kendrick told his. Kendrick Lamar is responsible for himself not for the entire black race. The other part of me says when someone as privileged as Kendrick is now. Spotlight, success and well spoken and could be respected for his views on race he missed a golden opportunity to educate the masses on what is the problem facing black youths instead of shaming them like he did now.

Its like me going into a inner city community and saying these people don't respect themselves for living in poverty and the chain like issues that surround being poor (crime, hopelessness, anger, etc). Or saying they don't love themselves how can they live here or live like this.

However as a society at some point we need to stop expecting things from celebrities other than music. We need black leaders, we need what are essentially already now segregated black schools anyways to get support from black leaders and businessmen. Stop waiting on white people to give a s**t or government and take a more grassroots approach. We are not hopeless but we are hopeless if we wait on government to help us lol.

It does take a village to raise a family and its time that village was all black. Sometimes in print or in writing the intention is missing. Maybe Kendrick in his own way was trying to hold black people more accountable instead of shaming them like it sounds. Yes there are barriers, there is injustice and wrongs but we aint passengers on this life, we have to hold ourselves accountable and do better and demand more from each other. There is a lot of self inflicted issues in our communities that run parallel with things we cant control. We need to check first what we can control and do better but people like Kendrick can't confuse their success to be the typical case cause if he couldn't rap where would he be today?

[Relaxing Cup]

Jan 9, 2015 19:45:04 GMT -5 @soblu said:

Jan 9, 2015 19:21:10 GMT -5 allow that said:

Because a video emulating death camps is the same as Iggy making some Flo Rida-esque pop songs...

where was Kendrick to say "She's doing what God put her here to do."

Perhaps he doesn't think that Nicki is doing what God put her here to do; maybe he thinks she's here to do what Kim did ten years ago. :kii:

OR he likes Iggy and doesn't like Nicki, like a lot of people.

[Deleted]

I will ride for Kimberly Denise through autotuned mixtapes, $2 lacefronts and Asian drag queen make-up aesthetics but you really wanna reduce this moment and this discussion to talk about Nicki being a biter? Feels a little petty. Onika would be proud.

[Relaxing Cup]

I guess I'm kind of a petty bitch. You guys can carry on talking about other female rappers in Kendrick's thread now.

[Wave.]

And that's exactly what Kendrick was talking about. :kii:

[tamed09]

Great read from Kendrick, he reminds me of old school artist..less is more

[#LisaRinna]

I find it interesting and disappointing that Kendrick is talking about leaving Iggy alone, considering Macklemore robbing him last year.

[Kishi KCM]

Jan 10, 2015 8:36:24 GMT -5 #LisaRinna said:

I find it interesting and disappointing that Kendrick is talking about leaving Iggy alone, considering Macklemore robbing him last year.

Macklemore didn't rob anyone, the Grammy voters selected that album over Kendrick's.

[#LisaRinna]

Jan 10, 2015 8:55:37 GMT -5 Kishi KCM said:

Jan 10, 2015 8:36:24 GMT -5 #LisaRinna said:

I find it interesting and disappointing that Kendrick is talking about leaving Iggy alone, considering Macklemore robbing him last year.

Macklemore didn't rob anyone, the Grammy voters selected that album over Kendrick's.

Something that should bother Kendrick, since his album is clearly superior.

[Fat Ass Kelly Price]

I'm more offended by Kendrick's Ferguson statements.

[swim]

The Billboard article makes me ready for this album even more! Very interesting read, I hope there's a breakout single for him on this album--though it seems he won't care if there isn't.

[#LisaRinna]

Jan 10, 2015 10:36:27 GMT -5 Fat Ass Kelly Price said:

I'm more offended by Kendrick's Ferguson statements.

Well those too.