Kendrick Lamar, DAMN. (2017) A Review
By: Ghost Writer
Rock N Roll Animal
Dark days are easy
to get by with great music, I know it well, I spent years with only a small
cassette player, music kept me alive, and these days are dark ones, Venezuela
sinking into oblivion, Trump recent discovery of bombs and a close
"missiles crisis" coming to North Korea, the populist menace in
Europe that seems to be apparently stopped in France, the crisis in Syria and
an age that seems to be led by authoritarian despots like Putin, Trump,
Duterte, Erdogan, Xi Jinping and Nicolás Maduro, good for us that such ugly
times seem to come along great music, and while hardcore punk, thrash metal or
industrial music haven't been able to come up with a great “Trump Era Record”,
hip hop maestro Kendrick Lamar has arrived with another majestic work of art
destined to compete directly with his 2015 masterpiece To Pimp a Butterfly,
opener BLOOD. comes with some deep R&B roots, gritty and full of nostalgia,
it kind of recalls the first few seconds of another complex and dramatic masterpiece
like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, but comparisons may not end up there, as
Lamar uses the aptly titled DAMN. as a frontal attack against the toxic
Trumpism, with next piece DNA. working as the perfect whirlwind introducing us
into Lamar modus operandi, powerful rhymes and prodigiously flowing word as
along a musical surrealistic pastiche that might make a post punk guy like Mark
Stewart or an industrial guy like Trent Reznor envious, production is
impressive full of weird turns in and out, perhaps a good reflection of our
over informed days again perfectly depicted on YAH., laid back but featuring a
very infectious groove, team perfect place for Lamar to lay down some more
words jumping form vocal style to vocal style, presenting himself as a
successful narrator of our present dark times and creating an admirable
chronicle of an age where global problems affect the nation and the streets
everywhere, all this along a slow waltz beat that remind us of Lamar skill to
up with sympathetic rhymes.
ELEMENT. Is
another explosive number with an infectious groove and the type of sounds that
has made grime and trap genres famous, it’s a merciless attack that takes
advantage from solid beats and delicious floating flow, letting Lamar spew more
venom over an impressive postmodern production in an obvious attempt to take
hip hop into the next level, making a very interesting art form here with the
young Lamar coming up as a new urban story teller in the same vein as legend
Bob Dylan with the exception that Lamar is coming from the streets from
Compton, with people like N.W.A. or Eminem as his direct ancestors, but
embracing fully the black culture of r&b, jazz, and jumping into the future
by using trap and electronica among other things, throwing unexpected jumps of
sound and even evoking the “chopped and screwed” techniques of the legendary
Texas producer DJ Screw, and even getting immersed on the sonic desolation
people like UK´s great producer Burial is able to inject in his musical
creation, like on FEEL., in which distorted and deformed voices play a trick
with our mind, perhaps hip hop answer to the so called “hypnagogic” movement of
a couple of years ago, and then attempting at invading pop shores thanks to an
astounding collaboration by pop goddess Rihanna on LOYALTY., a definite highlight
despite such an unashamed glimpse at mainstream.
There´s undeniable
beauty on themes like PRIDE., which draws obvious influence form the universe
of r&b, and which Lamar genius can use in order to give more context to
this tale about urban alienation of cosmic proportions and sort of revolt
against the state we are currently in, but if r&b is too mellow for some of
you, Lamar gets back into volatile mood on HUMBLE., featuring a cacophonous
piano motif along his catchy vocal lines perfectly capturing the dirtiness of
his Compton antecessors and perfectly launching it into a new, less street
centered and more globally oriented environment, although there are pieces
where production gets a little bit too over the top and menaces to run over
Kendrick, like on LUST., but he is able to rage over the machine and give his
music a new level of soul on pieces like the brilliant XXX., where he is able
to get on a curious postmodern trend U2 (featured here) started on Numb, from
their superb Zooropa album, here, Lamar frees his demons and let them roar for
free in a way not featured before on the record, this is Lamar at his best and
even taking more risk than ever by inviting Bono to jam along with him, to
prove that he can be an obviously better rapper than someone like Drake, and a
more disruptive figure than Kanye West could claim to be, DAMN. Is the sound of
the world in a very regrettable shape, but one that hasn’t lost the hope of
fixing everything one way or another, Lamar´s What´s Going On? Yes, it sounds like.
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