To Pimp a Butterfly
A sprawling, jazz-infused hip-hop masterpiece that confronts personal demons and systemic trauma with live instrumentation and raw, theatrical vocal performances.
March 15, 2015 · Top Dawg Entertainment
A sprawling, jazz-infused hip-hop masterpiece that confronts personal demons and systemic trauma with live instrumentation and raw, theatrical vocal performances.
March 15, 2015 · Top Dawg Entertainment
A feverish, live-instrumented claustrophobia drives this dense, sprawling document, which completely abandons the clean digital grids of modern radio. The music breathes with the unpredictable friction of a late-night jazz club, colliding weeping saxophones and virtuosic basslines against a fractured psyche. This is an exhausting, deeply human confession that trades commercial comfort for uncompromising, pitch-shifted self-flagellation.
“A densely packed, dizzying rush of unfiltered rage and unapologetic romanticism, true-crime confessionals, come-to-Jesus sidebars, blunted-swing sophistication, scathing self-critique and rap-quotable riot acts”Read review
“This album is mandatory listening”Read review
“To Pimp a Butterfly is Lamar firmly embracing his place at the pulpit, looking into himself and out into the world simultaneously, and using his influence to paint a powerful, enduring picture of the black American experience”Read review
“Will likely be one of 2015’s most discussed, dissected and debated album releases, regardless of genre”Read review
“To Pimp a Butterfly is as dark, intense, complicated, and violent as Picasso’s Guernica, and should hold the same importance for its genre and the same beauty for its intended audience”Read review
“A celebration of the audacity to wake up each morning to try to be better, knowing it could all end in a second, for no reason at all”Read review
“Lamar is also greatly invested in the post-rap sound he’s aligned himself with, which is another pointed departure from Good Kid, M.A.A.D City”Read review
“Uncompromising, thoughtful, and with enough buried complexities to keep people arguing for years to come”Read review
“As angry as Kanye, as funky as D’Angelo, more self-flagellating than Drake and as righteously cosmic as Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar’s latest album does not disappoint”Read review
“Has Lamar followed a classic with another classic? Not quite, but in laying his demons and his contradictions bare, he has stayed true to his formidable talent”Read review
“To Pimp A Butterfly stands as a fearless and uncompromising manifestation of Lamar’s desire to push the culture of rap forwards”Read review
“To Pimp A Butterfly’s combination of expansive scope and microscopic detail may come as something of a revelation”Read review
How does To Pimp a Butterfly sound next to the rest of Kendrick Lamar's catalogue?
The record reaches an exceptionally intense peak of psychological theater, pushing the vocal performances into raw, weeping breakdowns and fierce, unfiltered confrontations.
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