Kendrick Lamar – Section.80 (2011) [Top Dawg] // Grade: A

I never liked Tribe Called Quest that much. I love some of their songs, but for the most part their jazzy iteration of hip hop, and my young Florida Everglades life had very little in common. So, when I first listened to Kendrick Lamar on O(verly) D(edicated) I just heard a lot of jazzy sounding raps, and moved on. A friend on twitter encouraged me to give him another chance because she said I’d appreciate his lyrics. And I certainly did when I went back and listened through. Kendrick is a talented lyricist, but to a greater degree he’s a fearless citizen. This is protest music. It’s as punk as it gets in 2011. He’s speaking colloquially, and he’s not preaching, but he’s pointing out what’s fucked about this system, and telling us to start thinking about what we need to do to fix our community, and asking us to consider what makes up the lives we lead.

But he’s not all redemption. And I think that is slowly becoming the defining mark of a great rapper. Someone who understands when to turn off the deep meaningful lyrics, and further someone who is able to make it all seem natural transitioning from meaningful to ignorant. Kendrick does a great job of this. But, in a more sophisticated move there is a kind of narrative cohabitation taking place. It’s not quite a narrative arc, because it’s not so heavy-handed. But the narration on the record frames the first half as loosely organized around the theme of women Kendrick’s age, while the second half is organized around the theme of men his age. While some folks might look at this and say that it’s poorly executed, I see it as masterfully done. You can ignore the “concept” and the music doesn’t suffer. To me that’s successful execution.

Kendrick’s execution carries over to the selection of beats flawlessly. There is a clear thread running through this patchwork of very different sounds. The beats range from soft plodding Rhodes tunes, to epic RZA-chorused riding music. Kendrick is a very capable rapper too, so it’s not a surprise that he really flexes on each of the beats too. That flexing ranges from laying back and taking it easy on the beat to double-timing it in, through, over, under, and around the beat. And I’d say that kind of always already comfortable approach marks the record on a whole. It seems that no matter which moment you might find him in across this rather diverse record, his composure is equally comfortable. Kendrick just seems like a dude who is playing the long game, and I look forward to seeing where his career goes.

“Can’t detour when you at war with your city”

- Zachg