The King of New York!
Warning: Just about every track in this post contains the n-word, the f-word, the s-word, and probably plenty of other words that you may not want your youngins to hear. I recommend headphones if you’re at work or around anyone under the age of 30. If you’re offended by such words, you may want to skip this one. However, you will miss some seriously good hip hop if you do. Also, lyrics mostly taken from Rap Genius.
Back in mid-August, Big Sean, a young rapper from Detroit, released a track called “Control” that had not made the cut* for his then soon to be released third album, Hall of Fame. In addition to a verse by Big Sean, the track featured one verse each from Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica. Both Lamar and Jay frequently record verses for other artists’ albums, so ordinarily this would be no big deal. When I heard about the track on Twitter, I didn’t bother to listen to it. Then around midnight that evening, I got a flurry of emails, IMs, and one phone call (again, around midnight! argh) from friends and one of my brothers asking me if I’d heard Lamar’s verse. Since pretty much everyone I know is aware of the extent of my Kendrick Lamar fandom — I’m quite certain that he’s the best young artist in hip hop, and probably the best in a long, long time — I assumed that’s why they were telling me about it. So I clicked on one of the YouTube links, figuring I’d listen to it quickly before bed, and then I heard this:
Hole-Lee Shee-yut! (Look at that, it made my Tennessee accent come out!)
Did I just hear what I heard? Did Kendrick Lamar, from Compton, California, just call himself the king of New York, and did he then proceed to call out every young rapper out there:
But this is hip-hop and them n_____ should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron, Tyler, Mac Miller.
Including Jay Electronica, whose verse follows his, and Big Sean on his own damn song?! On his own damn song! Now, a ubiquitous feature of hip hop is rappers telling the world that they’re the greatest, and it’s not uncommon for them to call out other rappers in a verse, but naming that many names? And dissing an artist on his own song? I can’t think of anyone doing that ever. And a West Coast rapper saying he’s the king of New York, to boot. That, as they say, is some shit.
The backlash began immediately. New York rappers, and rappers from pretty much everywhere, had released responses by that evening, and responses continued to come out all week. And Twitter lost its ever-loving mind. Instead of going to bed that evening, I spend about an hour on Twitter. For the next week, in fact, my feed was filled with responses. For example, from my favorite Twitter comedian, @desusnice (whom you should follow immediately):
Soon as Papoose puts those boost mobile mins on his phone, he coming for Kendrick.
Lupe spitting an ill rebuttal right now and everyone in Starbucks is like “sir u gotta buy something or leave.”
Very disappointed that neither Meet the Press nor the McLaughlin Group discussed the fallout from Kendrick’s verse.
Even Lebron James reacted: This is real hip hop at his best! @kendricklamar boxed em into a corner. We going crazy over here people!! And Sean Combs (Diddy): KENDRICK!!!!! Ohhhh Shiiitttttt.
Lost in the hubbub over his calling out of all of hip hop was the fact that it was an incredible verse. I mean, that is as good as it gets. Seriously, go up there and listen to it again. The Big Sean verse that precedes it (from which I mercifully spared you) and the Jay Electronica verse that follows it pale in comparison. They come off not just ordinary, but downright dull. As @desusnice put it (seriously, are you following him yet?): Big Sean verses are like Jehovah Witnesses ringing ur bell. U just gotta wait it out and stand still till it’s over. (No Religion!)
Suffice it to say, this was the hip hop moment of the year, and it comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that Lamar was at the center of it. Since he released his second full-length album Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City late last year, it has been impossible to discuss the state of hip hip without mentioning him, and virtually everyone agrees that he is a force to be reckoned with.
Lamar’s been around for a decade now, since he released his first mixtape (in hip hop, mix tapes are low budget, low production collections of tracks) at age 16 back in ’03, under the name K-Dot, and another a couple years later. Those mixtapes featured songs like this one:
![Kendrick Lamar (K. Dot) - Blame God [Training Day]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/iX1VMLOTA_4/0.jpg?resize=720%2C388&ssl=1)
While it’s clear on those early mixtapes that he hasn’t yet gotten his legs under him, or fully discovered his voice, you can hear the promise, and the trademark Kendrick vocal style: smooth and laid back, but at the same time forceful. It’s an amalgam of West Coast rappers like Tupac and Dre, with a little Lil Wayne and East Coast (Rakim, Wu Tang) thrown in for good measure.
By 2011, when he released his first full-length studio album, Section.80, there was no doubt that he was something special. It’s an album about the struggles of Millennials, mostly in the inner city. For example, ADHD, in which Lamar talks about a generation so frequently given psychoactive medication that taking drugs, whether they have a prescription for them or not, just comes naturally:
My generation sippin’ cough syrup like it’s water
Never no pancakes in the kitchen
Man, no wonder our lives is caught up
In the daily superstition
That the world is ’bout to end
Who gives a fuck? We never do listen.
Or relatedly, hopelessness and attempting to come to terms with the harshness of life, on “Kush and Corinthians”:
To the meaning of life
What’s my purpose? Maybe this Earth is
Ain’t a good place to be
How far is heaven? Let’s see
Is it in the clouds like they said it would be?
I wonder when I die
Will he give me receipts?
I wonder will the eyes of the lord look at me?
Look at me, look at me, I’m a loser, I’m a winner
I’m good, I’m bad, I’m a Christian, I’m a sinner
I’m humble, I’m loud, I’m righteous, I’m a killer
What I’m doing, I’m saying that I’m human
These are not the lyrics of your average 23-year-old rapper. This is something newer, deeper, more reflective, and more revealing. Since the late 80s rap has so often been about hiding pain, insecurity, and one’s true self in talk of drugs, alcohol, sex, machismo, and real or imagined violence, but here is a young man worried that the lifestyle of his peers, still with drugs, alcohol, sex, machismo, and real or imagined violence, might be little more than escapism, a means to the ends of avoiding having to face one’s conditions, of avoiding having to ask oneself what is right and what is wrong, or in the worst cases, avoiding the tragic facts of a life that seemingly cannot be escaped.
He also touches on race and hip hop:
And prostitution, from the perspective of the prostitute (instead of just calling women ho’s):
![Kendrick Lamar - Keisha's Song [UNOFFICIAL VIDEO]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/Bp0phVuGjdU/0.jpg?resize=720%2C388&ssl=1)
Common topics in hip hop, to be sure, but given a fresh new perspective.
As good as Section.80 is, and it is damn good, I don’t think it prepared anyone for what Lamar did with his second studio album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. This is an album so good that, unless one expected perfection, one could not help but be surprised by it. It is The Chronic good. It is Ready to Die good. It is Illmatic good. In hip hop, there is no higher praise.
Good Kid is a sort of concept album, telling the story of Lamar’s life as a teenager and 20-something on the streets of Compton. As on Section.80, he talks about sex, drugs, and violence, but again, not to celebrate them, but to genuinely struggle with them, and how to escape them; how to be something more:
Smoking on the finest dope, aye aye aye aye
Drank until I can’t no more, aye aye aye aye
Really I’m a sober soul but I’m with the homies right now
And we ain’t asking for no favors
Rush a n____ quick then laugh about it later, aye aye aye aye
Really I’m a peacemaker but I’m with the homies right now
And momma used to say
One day, it’s gon’ burn you out
One day, it’s gon’ burn you out, out
One day, it’s gon’ burn you out
One day, it’s gon’ burn you
I’m with the homies right now.
“The Art of Peer Pressure” may be my favorite track on the album. Where in hip hop can you find lyrics better than this?
We made a right, then made a left, then made a right
Then made a left, but we was just circling life
My mama called – “Hello? What you doin’?” “Kicking it”
I should’ve told her I’m probably ‘bout to catch my first offense with the homies.
On Good Kid, Lamar has fully developed a unique style. It’s still got those old West Coast elements, and the New Orleans (Lil Wayne, Drake, who’s Canadian, but might as well be from New Orleans, style-wise), and a little Kanye as well, which is particularly evident in Lamar’s new penchant for altering his voice, as Kanye is wont to do, but it’s all brought together and transcended in something uniquely Kendrick:
For example, unlike in Kanye’s music, the voice alterations serve Lamar’s narrative on this track. You get the partier, in sober and faded versions, his conscience, and Lamar himself reflecting after the fact.
And while much of the album feels almost anti-hip hop in its stylistic elements, he can do classic hip hop with R&B hooks just as well (here you can hear the similarity to Drake, who raps his ass off on this track):
Lest I come off too fawning, and assuming that pretty much everyone stopped reading some time ago, I’m going to go ahead and end things here, but I can’t resist posting one of my favorite Lamar verses, on a track that features two more of my favorite artists, Talib Kweli and Curren$y. I hope that, even if you’re not a hip hop fan, you’ll give Kendrick a listen. I promise you that if there is any chance that you might enjoy hip hop ever, you will enjoy this. It is that good.
At this point in his career, when Kendrick Lamar tells you he’s focused, you fucking believe him.
*There were problems with the rights to one or more of the samples.
KL’s verse on “Control” was such a big deal that even I knew about it the night it happened. When I saw it blow up on my Facebook feed (which is hard to ‘blow up’… I only have 100 or so friends there), I knew something was going on and reached out to Chris about it. He informed me that “Black Twitter” had similarly blown up over the verse.
A few days later, I was camping with a friend who is a rap-afficionado and a friend of his who is certainly not. In telling them how I – he who is late to all things pop culture – knew about the verse, I mentioned my conversation with Chris.
The friend-of-a-friend’s response: “There is a ‘Black Twitter’?!?!?!” Which led to a whole other conversation.
I have to confess that I probably don’t appreciate or enjoy KL as much as others do. Which is not meant to be a slight at him. Rather, I am genuinely less concerned with the lyrical content in rap and more with the flow and musical stylings. It is why Kanye is such a favorite of mine and why I preferred “My Dark and Twisted Fantasy” (more wall-of-sound) to “Yeezus” (far more minimalist). It is why I like Lil’Wayne, who has a melodic nature to his flow and a unique voice that sounds like a musical instrument. You know Kanye or Weezy as soon as you hear them where KL takes a moment to recognize the genuine brilliance in his lyrics. This is why I will never be a true aficionado of any genre, as I tend towards liking songs that make my ears feel good. Which is exactly the sort of approach to music that draws the ire of real music fans. I also haven’t heard a ton of his stuff, meaning less opportunity to really appreciate the intricacies of it. This post will likely change that.
Nonetheless, KL is pretty remarkable and I respect anyone willing to call out the guy WHOSE SONG HE WAS RAPPING ON!!! And seeing as how many of his targets seemed to take it the way I understood it (More “Step up your game” than “You suck”) and did, indeed, step up their game, it was pretty dope. We need not return to the legitimate rap wars of the 90’s which left two of the game’s greatest artists dead, but a little healthy competition is good for the industry.Report
R is a huge Lil Wayne fan, and she loves Drake too. She does not like Lamar, even though she recognizes that he’s spent the last year working his ass off (he did something like 6 shows in 3 days at SXSW this year). She once told me that she doesn’t think Lamar is a hip hop artist at all, but a “song stylist.” And if you’d heard the tone in which she uttered the phrase “song stylist,” you’d know she didn’t mean that as a compliment.
So it’s certainly possible to be a genuine hip hop fan and not like Lamar, and there may be enough of a difference between Lil Wayne and Lamar that a lot of big fans only like one or the other.
I will say that I love both My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus, but for entirely different reasons. MBDTF is as big as hip hop has ever gone (it makes “maximalism” seem like a ridiculous understatement), but at the same time it’s so incredibly personal. Yeezus is Kanye stripping everything away except that giant, giant ego (he plays god on the album, un-ironically!), and that is awesome too.Report
MBDTF had so much of what I love in music, I couldn’t help but thoroughly enjoy it. “Is that a drum line? AND HORNS?!?! Holy shit, a female singer with pipes! ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!” Like, if you made a recipe of musical stuff I’d like and threw it together in the hands of a brilliant musician, it’d be that album. I mean, “Drum Line” is actually one of my favorite movies ever and I still enjoy ska-punk music. What are the odds of finding a hip hop album that does all that?
It is also why I enjoy Outkast so much and really, really enjoyed Big Boi’s Speakerboxxx. And why I can say, “I get why Nas is so highly regarded, but he doesn’t grab me by the shirt collars and tickle my ears.”Report
And seeing as how many of his targets seemed to take it the way I understood it (More “Step up your game” than “You suck”) and did, indeed, step up their game, it was pretty dope. We need not return to the legitimate rap wars of the 90?s which left two of the game’s greatest artists dead, but a little healthy competition is good for the industry.
And that’s exactly right. Here are some of the early Twitter responses from other rappers, including some he called out:
Big K.R.I.T.: “This is Gladiator Shit”…Gotta give the people what they want .
Big Sean: @kendricklamar so mad on that song, ha ha… Sheesh @JayElectronica on there like a scientist! Thanks u rappin ass n….
Trinidad James: I don’t feel like @kendricklamar dissed anybody. He just has moved up to another level. Y’all late overly dedicated n____! Bruh been fire!!!
Bun B: Every rapper is supposed to feel like Kendrick feels as far as wanting to murder n_____ on the mic. That’s why I wrote my “Murder” verse.
(I got those from here, which I found looking up the Lebron Tweet. Notice it also has one of the Desus tweets. Follow him!)
I think most rappers understand that this is the game they’re in, and they don’t take it as an insult but as a challenge. After the initial chaos, most people were concerned with a potential Lamar-Drake feud, since it’s reasonable to say that they are the two biggest young rappers on the planet now, and they had previously seemed to be friends, and had recorded together more than once. And while Drake was clearly not happy about it, he understood it too.
I think the biggest difference between the coastal feuds of the 90s and today, besides the fact that everyone in hip hop is aware of how out of control that got, is that the industry itself isn’t encouraging, even promoting in-group/out-group nonsense and real escalations.Report
Semi-related Drake story…
I used to work out at a gym in downtown Yonkers. I called it the prison yard because there seemed to be more face tattoos than treadmills. Anyway, it was a pretty intense place with a predominant black and Hispanic clientele. I loved it. They used to play music over the loud speakers and show the accompanying videos on the TV screens. A Drake song came on a guy nearby remarked, “This guy is really good. But, ya know.” “What do you mean?” “He was on that show and played a gay dude.” “Oh yea. I didn’t see the show but apparently he’s a really good actor.” “Yea… so, ya know… he’s good but, ya know… he played that gay dude.” “Well, it was acting.” Yea, but still…”
It is the only time I really heard that sort of criticism offered, but it made me wonder if it was more widespread. I don’t know how much DeGrassi (I think that’s what it’s called, right?) permeated the mainstream and how many people really know about Drake’s involvement. But I do know that African-American urban culture in general and hip-hop culture in particular are not on progressive on homosexuality as some other groups. Which made Drake’s willingness to take on the role all the more interesting and me all the more curious about what, if any, fallout it has had for him amongst hip hop fans.
Then again, he’s Canadian, so who knows. I still insist that America offers our greatest hockey player to Canada in exchange for Drake. It seems silly that one of the best young rappers out there is Canadian.Report
Damn straight.Report
I’m the guy who confessed ignorance of hip hop culture, and I totally dig all the hip hop posts you do, @chris . Feels like I’m getting schooled right.
Sometimes when perusing the selections I find myself trying to listen for the lyrics (especially when you call them out) and sometimes I kind of let go of what’s being said and can sort of drift along with the meter and the rhythm. When I don’t pay as much attention to the lyrics, and the artist busts out with the n-word or something approaching its gravity, it kind of disrupts where I was at with the beat.
This isn’t just me being sensitive, is it — I’m not alone in that experience?Report
@burt-likko – I have a draft out there on something old-school, that may bypass that problem…I’d been wanting to do it for a while and you just reminded me.
@chris – if you have nothing planned yet for this Friday night, would you mind if I post the draft entitled “GOAT!”?Report
Mind? I insist that you do so.Report
Cool, I set it for Friday. Feel free to move it out if you have something you’d rather post. It’s pretty short.Report
@burt-likko , I do not think it’s an unusual experience. That is one of the few words in the English language that, if you are not used to hearing it, it will immediately grab your attention and likely produce an emotional response. That’s a good thing, really, because it means the use of that word is rare. I am sorry it disrupts your experience, though. I’m trying to think of ways around that. Maybe Glyph’s post will get you there.Report
One of the first scenes in “Scrubs” (one of the best shows at dealing with racial issues out there, if you really pay attention) has JD asking Turk if when they’re singing along to a rap song together it’s okay for JD to say the N-word. Only he doesn’t even get that far into his request before Turk, seeing where he’s going, informs him bluntly that no, he can’t.
I will say that I have caught myself singing along to certain songs in the car and glossing right over it and other times running up against it like a brick wall. I don’t know how this experience compares with others and I’m not sure what it says about me. I was exposed to the n-word used colloquially a ton growing up, so it doesn’t seem as jarring to me as it probably does to most other white folks. I also listen to a lot of over-the-air radio, all of which currently censor the word, which may impact my disparate response. But there are times where it is much more subtle and rolls with the flow and times it acts as a period to us fairer-skinned folks even if it is the middle of a verse.Report
A year or so ago, I was sitting around drinking, listening to hip hop, and singing along with R. and a few of our friends, all of whom were black. As I was singing, lost in the moment (and slightly tipsy), I sang a line straight, with the n-word (I’d usually skip it or just skip the whole line that contained it, even when I’m singing it by myself in the shower… yeah, I do that). I had a brief moment of sheer terror, but when I looked around I saw that none of them cared. R. has known me for 14 years, and our other friends for about 10. They know me. They know I don’t use that word, they know I am, as R. frequently says, “pro-black,” and that even if I did use that word in that context, it wasn’t meant in a negative way. And they probably knew that I felt bad about it, and would probably never do it again.
But damn, for maybe 5 seconds I thought I might have a heart attack.
And I know they noticed, because a few months later I was riding in the car with one of the friends, listening to hip hop, when a line with that word came up and she said something like, “Be careful!” and then laughed her ass off.Report
“I hope that, even if you’re not a hip hop fan, you’ll give Kendrick a listen.”
With my nephew living in the house, I have no choice. I have not been impressed. I cannot dispute that he’s the best rapper in the game right now, but from what I’ve heard Lamar doesn’t depart from the formula enough to be considered truly ground-breaking.
Which is sad. Hip-hop could be a very vibrant art form, and is in miniscule, carefully curated doses. But for the last twenty years, it’s been stuck on the same subject matter in the same style with the same tone. It’s kind of like going from 1970 thru 1990 with nothing but Beatles clones. No Led Zeppelin. No Black Sabbath. No Van Halen. No Guns N Roses. No Metallica. No punk rock. No new wave. No grunge. Just twenty years of “Let it Be.”Report