But everyone there also felt protective of Kendrick and most of the people in the queue said something caring to the artist when their turn came around.
Everyone in that room was high off the idea they had just shared air with an ascendent Rap God and β despite having no real right to do so β I think we treated the meeting like we were lovingly talking to a relative about their future on graduation day. The music and rapper appear to unravel together. Here, Kendrick talks about doing therapy to deal with the roots of a toxic sex addiction. The song deserves credit for proving people can outgrow regressive views without being defined by retrospective shame.
(mh=OG1ftrIirpbci5vP)6.jpg "Sluts Copenhagen")
Kendrick should be applauded for making the biggest major label rap album of the year feel like a distinctly un-mainstream event. To understand why Kendrick Lamar would want to dismantle his own mythology, we must look backward. In the years that followed this landmark release, Kendrick rarely tired of pushing musical boundaries.
He utilised the scattershot approach of experimental jazz to peel back the layers of the Black subconscious on the masterful To Pimp A Butterfly and untitled unmastered , with lavishly funky songs that conflated the rush of sex with a hyperviolent, Nate Turner-style insurrection. It introduced the world to the Sage-like alter ego of Kung Fu Kenny, creating a clan of angry Fox News adversaries and winning a coveted Pulitzer Prize that solidified hip hop in the minds of European academics.
An unavoidable army of Kendrick-obsessed dissectors seemed to increase with each release. This resulted in feverish levels of expectation, with a vocal fandom insisting everything Kendrick rapped contained hidden, intricate messages that had something deep to say about the human condition.
