Bleep

Kendrick Lamar would go on to take hip hop to the Pulitzer Awards with the followup, but his first inroads from the streets to academia started with To Pimp A Butterfly. The Compton native with as many flows and vocal registers on record as most rappers had songs, Lamar had already proven his next up status with the hallowed halls of West Coast street rap well before the rest of the music world got wise. A politically-minded (though impishly inclined) chameleon that could steal the show on any feature as well as a preternaturally gifted storyteller and arranger on his records, it was only a matter of time before he worked his way towards the concept album. Lamar was also a voracious student of rap and Black music as a whole, setting the perfect storm for the jazz-rap odyssey about the Black experience in America that is To Pimp A Butterfly.

A veritable suite of musically rich tapestries paired with some of the most eloquent dispatches from the front lines ever committed to tape, the album set a new standard for rap excellence in an era that was plenty rich with event releases. Interscope now rightfully celebrates a decade in the game for Butterfly with this newly minted reissue.

The story begins with 'Wesley's Theory', a dream collab for multiple generations of music fans that finds space for George Clinton and Thundercat amidst deft production by Warp's own Flying Lotus. While other tracks feature the likes of Anna Wise, Snoop Dogg, Bilal, and more, it’s on the interludes, big singles, and deeper cuts Lamar takes on his own that really shine here. From the braggadocious ‘King Kunta’ to the solemn ‘Hood Politics’, Lamar threads headlines, jokes, bloodletting, memorials, and more through a dense-but-tangible storyline that reads just as well on the page as it sounds in your headphones.