969 Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid M.A.A.D City (2012)

Studio album - Hip-Hop

About the Act:

Kendrick Lamar is a rapper from Compton, California. Hos work has been critically and commercially well-received. After a self-made digital release, he has had four studio albums.

About the Album:

This was Kendrick's second studio album, the first on a major label. It sold really, really well, and critics loved it.

My History with this Album:

I have had a long and confusing relationship with this album, starting last night when I heard it for the first time.

Review:

As I started to listen to this album last night, I was reading something else, and wasn't really concentrating. I was feeling like it fitted my preconceptions, in that there was a lot of swearing, derogatory words for women, talk of violence and drugs and I'd like to say innuendo, but more like single entendres. The music was very minimal backing and simple beats, with quite complex rapping going on. I was all set to give this album a 2 out of 10.

Then I stopped reading and started actually listening. It's hard at times to make out the words as they are of course heavily accented. I am well out of my depth here, as a perpetual avoider of most Hip-Hop and rap in general. I don't have reference points to compare with, maybe that's good, because there is a good chance that you are also in the same situation, my reader. The Kinks album I reviewed before this one was much more of a comfortable space for me.

Musically, then, there are beats, which are often obviously drum machine sounds, sometimes quite retro, sometimes real drums (sampled?) and occasionally jazzy. Behind that there are other bits of musical sound, often quite paddy, some phat synth bass at times, some orchestral instruments, occasional gentle piano. And then there are twiddly bits of noise and instruments injected.  The rapping is varied in style, and Kendrick adopts different voices, I understand for different characters.

The whole album is a concept album, apparently semi-autobiographical. Again, it's not necessarily easy to follow, but having listened to it twice I am picking up a reasonable amount. It is kind of about a boy growing up in Compton, and having brushes with gang life, then a Christian conversion, and becoming famous as a rapper. It visits several characters, and talks about attitudes and experiences, relationships, police brutality, drinking, and various aspects of the sort of life he apparently actually experienced. It does have some tracks that are from a point of view that is either from his previous attitudes or from other characters. These are laced with irony and the album as a whole does not glorify misogyny, violence or drug use, but does portray them as part of life for the characters involved. In fact, the whole album is thoughtful, well-written, at times poetic, and certainly seems to be quite honest. It is definitely thought-provoking. In-between tracks there are short acted vignettes that add to the story.

I never expected to be so engaged and affected by a rap album.

8/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/748dZDqSZy6aPXKcI9H80u

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL86h966U8nZAg04lwvw2ESBUvAjwvrf_n

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Kid,_M.A.A.D_City