Kendrick Lamar-To Pimp A Butterfly (March 23) Updated with tracklist & features

[Minkaveli]

holy shit is this album dope as fuck. its refreshing hearing something new aside from the same ol trap sounding beats and shit. this shit is funky as fuck. king kunta and wesley's theory are my 2 favorite jams, after listening to the album 3 times  im feeling this newer version of i and that interview he has with pac at the end of mortal men, thats dope as fuck. k. dot reps the west coat hard as fuck. i cant wait until the end of the week when i can smoke to this. definitely sounds like a great album to smoke to. 

co-sign

[dameons]

I'm only 23 , and I fux with new school and classic rap..this is straight garbage. K Dot has feminine ways. I'd rather listen to Skyzoo over this clown. K Dot leads the sissy-fication moveme.nt of rap. Eazy is turning in his grave .

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Skyzoo, the guy best known for getting mopped by Jin on BET?

[CORREA]

I'm only 23 , and I fux with new school and classic rap..this is straight garbage. K Dot has feminine ways. I'd rather listen to Skyzoo over this clown. K Dot leads the sissy-fication moveme.nt of rap. Eazy is turning in his grave .

yep being 23 explains it all you were born yesterday you know nothing but think you know all
go back to listening to money hoes and cars in every song

[DeeezNuuuts83]

i wouldn't mind a deluxe version

Call me crazy, but I think there will be.

It's weird enough that a week ago, we didn't have a track list, let alone an album title.  Then we get the whole thing more than a week early on iTunes (I don't see how that was an accident), so of course people will buy it.  Personally I thought about getting it because a small part of me was thinking, what if it was a mistake and they take it down.

But the fact that a deluxe edition is already showing up on Best Buy, the very place I was assuming it would be available from (likely exclusively), it might end up on shelves anyway... might be an incentive for the hardcore fans to get both, or maybe just pick up the additional songs on iTunes.

[Sccit]

they lyin left n right ..... the reason they sayin there's no delux is so peeps pick this one up
and bigger fans are forced to get the delux too when it drops. simple science.

[Blunt Tyme Da Gawd]

I'm only 23 , and I fux with new school and classic rap..this is straight garbage. K Dot has feminine ways. I'd rather listen to Skyzoo over this clown. K Dot leads the sissy-fication moveme.nt of rap. Eazy is turning in his grave .

smfh im 24, you dumb as fuck right now. skyzoo?? fuck outta, youve lost whatever credibility you had here pussy boy.

[Chamillitary Click]

half experimental bullshit.

You clearly missed an entire generation of Hip Hop lol.

[Will_B]

Not sure how I feel about the album.  This is going to take a few spins at least to fully digest the lyrics, content and concepts.  There are no really stand out type tracks similar to GKMC.  There is no Swimming Pool, Maad City, Backseat Freestyle type songs.  But the album sounds cohesive all together.

This. Both albums are great musically but GKMC was wrapped up and packaged in a way that had overall message and meaning. And it was laced with some of the best west coast music it years. This one has less strength in ideas and originally , and is dressed up in a more complex soundscape like Kanye does. But not to the extent its carrying trash lyrics and noise like in Yeys case

[Game-Won]

You guys trippin over a guy isnt amazed at this album.. it isnt a classic.. its lucky to 3/5 stars.. The lyrics hold up his at times corny gay flow.

Kendrik can be damn right amazing... sometimes it goes bad and becomes hella gay as when eminems flow at times.


Its a decent album, no more no less. - And thats how i feel about it.



But you never know on 10 listens later i might think different.. but as now.

[Will_B]

For UK folks:

This hit the stores early. I saw it today in HMV for £9.99

[M Dogg™]

the album is great for those who suffer from insomnia.

dont get mad cause ti cant do other then the typical generic garbage thats already out there 

no I'm mad cause this nigga has dr. dre at his disposal and his beats is delicate as fuck.

fuck dre he never needed him

LOL he need to leave soundwave and them other niggas alone.

soundwave and ali and others are responsible for building tde with their production 

them beats is wack.  they fucked up the album wit them delicate beats.

Delicate? Beats?
So that's what makes me now?
Man, I don't give a fuck about no beat

Okay, I have gave this album two spins. No doubt it's a good album. I can get to different levels of this, so I will...

If you listen to Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, and you listen to it from beginning to end, then this album only makes more sense. As a concept album, this album follows Kendrick after he left the streets and became King Kendrick. The album title is To Pimp a Butterfly, and it was stated over and over that Butterfly is a metaphor for talent. This album is him pimping his talent for profit to get out, but then dealing with the depression of survivor's guilt, and at the same time wanting to uplift his community all while being selfish and getting out the community. For reals, this album is DENSE. There is so much in it, and so much to digest that even after two complete listens, I still didn't catch 50% of what I think I heard. Content wise, this album is loaded on content. And the order of the songs is important, because out of order this album would just be all over the place. Like it makes sense to have Blacker the Berry after Complexion (A Zulu Love). Also, the some tracks are really deep, but is coded with basic hood talk, like Hood Politics. Basically using terms that we said as kids, and then mixing it up with the title of a Jesse Ventura book, Kendrick swings from hood to educated language throughout the whole song. And he does it effortlessly. He calls Lucifer Lucy throughout the album. Talks about wanting to kill himself if some songs. This album is so loaded.

So with that said, the album flows, it is deep, lyrical, lots of content, not only has replay value, it NEEDS to be replayed just to catch everything. Now to the music.

A long time ago I wrote a lot on how you can't catch people with lyrics if you have bad beats. At the time, I was talking about these underground cats who always wondered why they have so much skill yet no one is listening to them. Since the Love Below, and basically all of Kanye West post-Dropout, these beats don't seem so experimental or even bad. There is a lot more Jazz in the music, a hint of G-Funk and it gives off an experimental vibe that's similar to OutKast or early Kanye West. I can't explain it too well, other than some songs might be drowned out by trumpets. One track, I forgot the name, did have a hint of those old G-Funk whistles. It was very refreshing. LOL. The first 3-4 songs are very funky as well, and I really was just enjoying the hell out of them. Overall, right now I can't pick out a true single's track, maybe King Kunta. But this album was not made to have radio tracks. I felt the same way about Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City too, but Swimming Pools and Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe took off. But any track that makes the radio will probably need to be redone to fit radio sound. But that's not unheard of, and it's not even unheard of for Kendrick. I can see remixes being big on the radio.

My overall feeling on this album, I like it. I also own all of Kanye's albums, and OutKast. To me, this is not alternative hip-hop, or experimental hip-hop, this style has been out for at least 10 years. It's different for the westcoast, but it very much fits in hip-hop over the last 10 years. I almost see this as Kendrick trying for his own Me Against the World. At the time, 2Pac was doing Thug Life, his sound was really raw and aggressive, and then he put out Me Against the World which was different than what he did before. It was almost like he made a whole album of Keep Your Head Up. This feels like Kendrick making a whole album that was meant to uplift, deal with issues and be something people talk about for a long time. It captures the times we are in, it has lots of Black Lives Matters overtones, it sounds like hip-hop today, it is very much the soundtrack of right now. I'd say the one thing that is inconsistent is that the lyrics spit over the music are very raw and real, were as the music don't fit the themes of the lyrics. But I think that's done on purpose. I heard him spit some of those lyrics over a few Biggie's beats and it sounded so raw. But over this album it sounds more thought provoking.

So yeah, that's a quick reaction to this album. Stand out tracks, of course Blacker the Berry, How Much Does a Dollar Cost and Hood Politics. Also U is very good and I think These Walls could be a single if worked out right.  I'll give this album a 4 out of 5. It's a masterpiece, but it's not quite a classic. At least not yet. Unlike many rap albums, in order to tell if this album is a classic, you have to see the way people interact with it and digest it. Good Kid was very much an album of Kendrick tell you his life, this album was meant to be interacted with and process. Very different, and so to give it instant classic status is very premature.

[HighEyeCue]

dope and cohesive album although not as many standouts as his last one...going to have to test its replay value though

[KushEazy]

this album is pure west coast.. Kdot dropped another classic album

[Jay_J]

anybody said g-funk is dead?

then what the fuck are those?

wesley's theory

king kunta

these walls

hood politics

how much a dollar cost

you ain't gotta lie (momma said)