To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar (Review)
[Originally Published on May 20, 2020]
Kendrick Lamar stands onstage surrounded by dark blue lights and a light layer of smoke. He’s dressed militantly in all black and his thin braids stretch from his scalp like new branches. The Compton rapper’s countenance holds a locked-in look that indicates he’s either not all there, or more there than he’s ever been. He’s much different than the faded Phenom who shook up the world years earlier by taking us on a ride along in the Maad City that raised him.
As the intense jazz performance of an unreleased track unfolds, Kendrick individually shouts out each of the architects of this sound: Terrance Martin, Bilal, Thundercat, and lead singer Anna Wise. As each of their faces are revealed, it becomes evident that K Dot isn’t the only one who’s possessed. A project as ambitious as To Pimp a Butterfly requires one to toil and struggle on a thin line between sanity and insanity—finding oneself and losing oneself. Standing this close to one’s inner inferno threatens to either ignite the person’s consciousness or scintillate them whole. It’s clear that these musicians took the plunge with Kendrick and emerged with black gold.
The album title To Pimp a Butterfly is a modern-day reference to a classic novel in American literature: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Published in 1960 at the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, this staple was lauded for its discussion of racial inequality and the general loss of innocence that comes with seeing and knowing more. Kendrick’s unapologetic adaptation explains how two potentially beautiful things (blackness and artistic talent) have been exploited or “pimped” in this country. It unpacks multiple layers of antiblack racism in America, as is evident by the bold and chaotic album cover. The project also critiques the music industry’s manipulation of artists for financial and cultural capital. The album’s potency is enhanced by the unconventional sound it is built on. Through its lyrical content and musical composition, To Pimp a Butterfly was clearly constructed to rewrite the rules.
The album’s most noticeable departure from Good Kid Maad City is its sound and structure. With all due respect to legend JAY Z and his classic “retirement” project, the name The Black Album should have been reserved for this tape. The album is forged with an array of black musical influences spanning centuries of its lineage including funk, jazz, blues, and soul. It stands on the shoulders of projects such as Maxwell’s Black Messiah and A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders—but with a futuristic spin. The funky “Wesley’s Theory” alludes to Wesley Snipes’s tax issues to discuss how black artists from poor communities don’t have a template for money management. “Anyone can get a house like mine. The hard part is keepin’ it muthaf*cker,” Dr. Dre warns over a voice recording.
Tied together by a poem that accumulates more lines as the project continues, the album follows Kendrick’s journey fighting different forms of temptation as his star shone brighter in the industry. He struggles against sexual seduction on the groovy “These Walls”, amplified by Thundercat’s stellar base guitar work. Bottle in hand, he tussles with survivor’s guilt and suicidal ideation on the chilling “u.” He captures self-hatred in the most accurate and painful way possible. In fact, the rapper revealed that the inverse track “i” has the refrain “I love myself” so he could repeat the words to himself every day until he believed them. On “For Sale? (Interlude)”, Kendrick is faced with the challenge of maintaining his morals and individuality while being enticed to sell his soul and his music’s authenticity for money and power.
Throughout this project, Kendrick skillfully plays a host of robust, dynamic characters. He embodies the Devil as “Lucy” on the aforementioned “For Sale? (Interlude)”, Jesus as a homeless man on “How Much a Dollar Cost?”, his wise mother on “You Ain’t Gotta Lie”, and his homies from home who are thirsty to rob the glamorous, pampered BET Awards stars on “Institutionalized.” The album also explores how many self-defeating behaviors and thoughts are institutionalized and ingrained in black people from their childhood. On “Complexion (A Zulu Love),” the only featured rapper Rapsody delivers an empowering verse rebuking colorism and emanating appreciation for all skin tones. “Hood Politics” compares the culture of violence rampant in the hood to the power-driven American political system (“Ain’t nothin’ new, but a flu of new Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-licans/ Red state versus a blue state, which one you governin’?”).
Elsewhere on the album are the uplifting, Pharrell-produced Black Lives Matter anthem “Alright” and contemplative “Mortal Man.” On the latter, Kendrick wonders if the sacrifices he’s making to contribute to black consciousness will amount to anything: “How many leaders you said you needed and left them for dead?” What follows is an unreleased Tupac interview, structured as a conversation between them both about revolution. His message: oppressed people are tired of asking. Kendrick has been tied to the LA legend, who he met on the set of “California Love” as a child and who later came to him in a dream.
In 2017, Kendrick Lamar revealed that he created To Pimp a Butterfly to free himself from the industry’s expectations and from the mental slavery that kept many confined in a cocoon. Archived in the Library of Congress, his work will inspire future generations to break free and find their wings—or in other words, find their voice.
