Kendrick Lamar's 'Damn.' Embraces the Complexity and Talent of the Man Behind It

Perhaps the most cinematic and high-concept rapper in the world right now, for Kendrick Lamar to release a record nearly free of skits, interludes, or interviews with deceased rappers seemed impossible after two major label albums that redefined the limits of what’s expected and acceptable for a mainstream rap record to feel and sound like. While the feature-length follow up to modern classic To Pimp a Butterfly begins with a spoken word track detailing the rapper’s supposed death, Damn. feels mostly like other rap records released in the past few years in terms of thematic material, structure and style. What makes the album special is it just happens to be one of the most talented, interesting and considered rappers in the world making it.

Much was made of the influence of the history of black music on To Pimp a Butterfly as that album was defined by Thundercat’s six-string bass and Robert Glasper’s keys as much as Kendrick's world-class lyricism, but Damn.’s first full-length track “DNA.” doesn’t veer too far from his Los Angeles roots, as producer Mike Will Made It puts on his best G funk impression with one of the albums most inspired beats. That track to some extent misleads the listener of what to expect from the rest of the record. Many of the album’s tracks are more muted than “DNA.," as it and lead single “HUMBLE” create some moments of tremendous energy and force.

The inclusion of a red-hot producer like Mike Will Made It is telling of Damn.’s sonic touchstones. Producers of the highest class are everywhere on this record, as TBAB’s Terrence Martin returns as well as Adele producer Greg Kurstin both supplement familiar faces like longtime collaborator Sounwave. Damn. uses an fusion of styles familiar to Kendrick Lamar already while exploring the world of rap trends. Given the album’s preoccupation with Lamar proving his prowess over others in the rap world, Kendrick’s melodic bars on the hooky and effective “LOVE.” seem a direct challenge to others doing a similar thing (read: Drake) to step their game up. On a track like “LOVE.," which wears its melodicism and sweet simplicity on its sleeve, Damn. deserves credit for embracing pop structure and simplicity without sacrificing Lamar’s core. A brief breezy “YAH.” fits incredibly well in the context of the album, as the pop moments are spread out well enough that they never feel like grabs for radio attention.

In other places, the album would have perhaps done better avoiding embracing modern trends that don’t suit Kendrick’s lyricism and storytelling abilities particularly well. Monster single “HUMBLE.” seems to ape sounds and styles present in the south. Considering Kendrick’s strength as a storyteller and songwriter, the simple brag-rap and repetitive flow rob us a lot of what makes Kendrick unique. Considering “HUMBLE.” was the lead single from this album, it’s a pretty strong step down from a “King Kunta," “Alright,” or “Swimming Pools."

The album doesn’t entirely sound like a pop-rap record, as some of Kendrick’s stylistic touchstones and experimental tendencies leak into Damn., producing again stunning results. Thundercat’s bass returns on “Feel” as Kendrick creates some of his considered and well-constructed verses in years, mostly abandoning storytelling for a nonlinear, near stream-of-conscious collection of musings on faith, family, and fame.

The one-two punch of the playful accessibility of “LOVE.” and the dense, hard-edged “XXX.” is telling of the album’s deliberate structure. The schizophrenic back and forth between calm and ferocity, tension and release, point to an artist deeply concerned the full-length listening experience. Even though the album isn’t broken up with interludes featuring Kendrick's father demanding Dominos pizza, the album’s structure lends itself well to its thematic considerations. The staggering and complex “XXX.” follows “LOVE.,” featuring three distinct sections that showcase some of Kendrick's most powerful lyricism (Kendrick has a remarkable ability to make frequently revisited topics feel fresh at every mention), and some of Damn.’s most ambitious production. The kinetic siren-fueled second section contrasted with the glum, Bono-sung third section is one of Damn.’s finest moments.

Damn. will most likely be remembered as Kendrick’s most spiritual album. Biblical references pepper his musings on success and recognition, and one of the few spoken-word moments is from his cousin Carl musing on God, the Israelites and the plights and struggles of Black America. Along with those religious themes, the tension between spiritual humility and rap excess worms its way into the album in interesting and fresh ways. The modestly produced “PRIDE.” precedes the audacious and swaggering “HUMBLE." While none of this is necessarily new ground for the artist or the genre, because Kendrick is such a clever lyricist, and the songs are either interesting or plain fun, the album never feels repetitive. Considering many of the big picture lyrical themes are present across Kendrick’s discography, Damn. manages to engage to a remarkable degree.

One could consider Damn. as a simpler foil to Kendrick's two major label full-length gems, though a closer listen and examination of the artistry at hand should keep even the most demanding listener appeased with an artist growing to occupy a unique space of accessibility and experimentation, ambition and pop satisfaction. While it doesn’t always reach the heights of the TBAP tracks like “Wesley’s Theory” or “Mortal Man," Damn. is at its best a breathtaking pop-rap record never content with one theme or idea, embracing instead the complexity and talent of the man behind it.

'4 Your Eyez Only' Sustains J.Cole's Profitable Position in Hip-Hop

“Double platinum, no features,” the adage goes. It is the latter’s absence of association, however, as opposed to the commercial success presented in the former, which has kept J. Cole from falling the way of his mixtape heyday peers Wale and Meek Mill.

As divided as most hip-hop fans are about J. Cole’s music, it is difficult not to wish him success. His humble and sincere persona, substantiated by chance encounters with him on local bus routes and his bike commute home, have rendered him the most “likable” person in hip-hop. With J. Cole we have a different hip-hop figure. Where an artist like Kendrick Lamar is likely to glean over the heads of a community which elevates the likes of Lil’ Yachty and Lil’ Uzi Vert into the upper tier, J. Cole is able to engage the masses in a discourse on politics, social issues, and virtue.

J. Cole’s prowess as a producer revealed itself well before he attained his double-platinum status. Hits like “Power Trip” and “No Role Modelz” demonstrated the work of a creative mind with an innate ability to contort the popular instrumental palate and appeal to bread-earning demands of airplay. In this sense, J. Cole has been something of an oxymoron – a hit-maker with a live performance interspersed with sermons speaking against materialism. As endearing as these qualities are in J. Cole, it is a wonder that his lyrical substance has failed to match the quality of his instrumental production or his maturely grounded worldview.

4 Your Eyez Only acknowledges the fact that J. Cole connects best with fans on a personal level. From the album’s beginning and onward, he sings with an earnestness which doesn’t indicate a strain to achieve scintillating R&B vocals, but establishes vulnerability. His raps refer onto his signature range of swaggering self-assurance and endearing portrayals of insecurity. As a whole, the album’s instrumentals are more consistent than 2014’s 2014 Forrest Hills Drive. J. Cole laces boom-bap percussions with glitch-synth accents and motifs to create a body of work that is approachable and easy. The album shows his aesthetic not as improved, but refined. Nowhere on it do we hear J. Cole relate the world to frigid temperatures with his overused trademark ad lib. Instead, we are given a more patient and well-portioned album which looks to sustain listeners from beginning to end.

Returning J. Cole fans will find themselves satisfied with anthemic hits like “Immortal” and “Déjà Vu.” The latter’s production reveals the live performance sensibility that J. Cole has picked up in his past year on the music festival circuit. The song begins and ends with a call-and-response fanplay which has the makings for great performative moments, but does little to stimulate any provocative considerations. Superficialities aside, “Déjà Vu’s” trap percussion and Rich Boi-esque post-chorus make it a mainstay for the late night car ride or commute home.

An undeniable highlight, “Neighbors” contemplates racism through an anecdote inspired by true events. Its woozy, molasses-thick instrumental evokes early A$AP Rocky while raising interesting dilemmas of black success and stereotypes. The album’s intellectual high, “Neighbors” finds itself alone as a moment of progression for J. Cole. The rest of 4 Your Eyez Only fails to match, lyrically or instrumentally, the substance of J. Cole’s close reading of race relations on the song and can at best be considered superficial, tried, and tired.

Were J. Cole to give into the fixations of luxury and excess of his lesser popular peers, he may not be as prominent a figure within the genre as he currently is. His character yields no indication of him doing so, but the risk he currently runs with 4 Your Eyez Only is stagnation. 4 Your Eyez Only provides nothing more and nothing less than what fans have come to love about his music. It shows a successful J. Cole inhabiting the profitable and comfortable place in hip-hop he has carved out for himself and does little to reinforce that position to endure the long-term.

A Front-Loaded Collection of Hip-Hop and Pop Beats, Clams Casino's '32 Levels' is a Mixed-Bag

Putting out a solo record as a hip-hop beat maker is tricky business. Typically your role as a producer is one of background—serving as a springboard for a rapper or singer. But on your own record, however, you have to strike a balance incorporating intriguing features, while not overshadowing one’s own production chops. In the last few years we’ve seen a number of hip-hop beat makers and producers make a name for themselves outside of the famous artists they work with—Flying Lotus, Knxwledge, SBTRKT, and KAYTRANADA to just name a few—and electronica/beat music seems to only be gaining more credibility as an independent and dynamic genre.

Clams Casino, actual name Michael Volpe, is just one of many hot producers venturing into putting out his own solo record. Having developed a fervent following through his work with artists like Lil B, A$AP Rocky, and The Weekend, along with several well received instrumental mix tapes and EP, Clams’ debut LP 32 Levels was a highly anticipated release hip-hop and beat heads alike. The album features 12 tracks (plus 12 instrumentals of the tracks) featuring some familiar players (A$AP Rocky, Lil B) as well as some unique choices, most notably Sam Herring of Future Islands.

32 Levels has two very distinct A and B sides. Side A is distinctly the rap portion, stacked with A$AP, Vince Stables, and several tracks with Lil B. Clams is very clearly in the zone on this section of the album. His beats are tight and masterfully produced, and possess a polish not heard on his previous work like the Rainforest EP. Long time listeners will appreciate the dark, heavy, and aquatic tones and his delicious composition of vocal samples that have come to define Clams unique sound. He utilizes the flows of Rocky on “Be Somebody," and it obvious that he has a deep rapport with Lil B that allows them to build off one another’s musical styles. Vince Staples is particularly strong on his track “All Nite,” which is a fiery banger with almost industrial, syncopated breakdown.

On Side B, Clams’ enters new territory with more pop features like Kelela and Sam Dew, ending with Herring. Unfortunately, this gives a front-loaded feeling to 32 Levels. Clams Is very clearly out of his element on this section of the record, and the adeptness he exhibits with his features on side A is absent on the second half. Frankly, it just doesn’t seem like Clams knew what to do with these singers. There are certainly moments of promise on the B side: Sam Herring gritty baritone jives well macabre musicality of Clams, Kelela’s voice soars on the chorus of “A Breath Away,” but tracks like “Back to You” and “Into the Fire” smack of Top 40 pop and Clams’ stamp seems washed away. Herring and Kelela make the second half worth listening to, but one could certainly skip some of these tracks without missing much.

Despite fizzling a bit, 32 Levels is indicative of an exciting future for Clams Casino. Clams has refined and focused his sound, and there is not doubt that as a hip-hop producer he demands respect. The question that remains is whether Clams will be able to build off the successful experimentation on this record to find his pop sensibility, or if he will be better served staying in his own wheelhouse.

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The Emerging Place of Hip-Hop in the Culinary Sphere

Eddie Huang - host of Viceland's Huang's World and owner of East Village restaurant BaoHaus. (Photo: Huang's World - Vice Media LLC)

This past year, two unique television programs under the same network rocked food television with their immense popularity as Viceland’s Huang’s World and Fuck, That’s Delicious built upon the successful template established by the contemporary icon of food TV, Anthony Bourdain. The punk rock, culturally adventurous, and politically daring culinary bad-boy earned the Travel Channel degrees of edge and grit previously perceived as unattainable for the network, an especially notable feat for Bourdain’s No Reservations considering its adjacent air time to the program of lame-dad, defiler of the King’s English Andrew Zimmern. Eventually moving to CNN, who realized Bourdain’s ambitions to film more dangerous locations, Bourdain saw continued success as the host of Parts Unknown, winning four Emmys while redefining the palate for televised food and travel culture.

Both Eddie Huang of Huang's World and rapper Action Bronson of Fuck, That's Delicious have adopted Bourdain's persona as the anti-establishment host with tactful yet unembellished diction. What Huang and Bronson have revamped, to their advantage, is the aesthetic, exchanging Bourdain’s literary punk appeal for a hip-hop oriented experience with an accessible level of sophistication. This immigrant American, hip-hop devotional, and most of all, understated appeal is the primary difference between Bourdain and the two aforementioned personalities. Whereas Bourdain’s shows could easily rely on the chef’s French-style culinary training, Huang’s World and Fuck, That’s Delicious treat their hosts’ formal culinary backgrounds with subtle acknowledgement, presenting Huang and Bronson mostly as home-trained cooks/hip-hop fanatics instead.

Anthony Bourdain (Photo: Parts Unknown - CNN)

Where Bourdain, Huang, and Bronson’s shows win with audiences lies in the authenticity of the hosts. Regardless of punk or hip-hop sensibilities, the congruency between hosts’ televised and real-life personalities has risen in value as a commodity in food television. It is this element of the true-to-form host that has won Huang’s World and Fuck, That’s Delicious Anthony Bourdain’s approval. Though Bourdain’s praise does not reference either host’s character as a hip-hop aficionado, the transitioning popularity from Bourdain’s punk-framed socio-political interrogation of cuisine to the new frontier of hip-hop contextualized cuisine/culture is a trend that is difficult to overlook. And yet, the hip-hop approach to cuisine and culture makes so much sense, as much, if not more sense, than Bourdain’s brand of punk.

As Americans of Albanian-Jewish (Bronson) and Taiwanese (Huang) heritage who embrace hip-hop, the two not only attest to the cultural intermingling which occurs within hip-hop, but manifest it in their shows, and do so shamelessly. Never is there an episode in which Huang isn’t walking the streets of a Eurocentric town dressed in an oversized jersey and Jordans. Similarly, cameras follow both Bronson and his Mr. Wonderful tour supporting posse: the Alchemist, Big Body Bes, and Meyhem Lauren – a multicultural collective who accompany Bronson at all times, even if they sometimes contribute absolutely nothing to the culinary conversation. Through their shows, these hosts advocate the embrace of cultural diversity as experienced through the enjoyment of food. Their outlook exploits the parallels between hip-hop’s transcendence of racial barriers and the expansion of cultural insight afforded by travel-dining. Understanding where these two shows have placed hip-hop in relation to cuisine is best accessed through Huang’s assimilation of the two – food, like hip-hop, is a culture for outsiders who inevitably find a commonality with the broader community.

Action Bronson - rapper and host of Viceland's Fuck, That's Delicious. (Photo: VICE Eats - Vice Media LLC)

My own realization of the appropriateness of hip-hop as a platform for cultural exploration through food struck me, ironically enough, as I followed a destination-dining rabbit hole I discovered in the Montreal episode of Parts Unknown. Near the culmination of my tour de Montréal, I took a cab from the Gay Village to Little Burgundy for my second service reservation at Joe Beef, the highly esteemed feeding ground of choice for Montréalais omnivores, regarded as one of the one hundred best restaurants in the world. I read the dimly lit menu written in cursive French on the chalkboard spanning the entire left wall, extracting what the three years of French I had taken in college thus far allowed me to. I curated my choices with wild game and gluttonous excess in mind, invoking scenes of seared foie gras and copious helpings of black truffles on a table set before Anthony Bourdain and Joe Beef owners David McMillan and Fédéric Morin.

Awaiting my meal at the bar, the ambience of the bistro did its part in stimulating my anticipation. Deep cuts by Mos Def and the Roots played over table conversation, consistent with jazz-based instrumentals accented with boom bap percussion and intricate rhymes by Yasiin Bey and Black Thought. Theirs was the socially conscious and introspective lyrical matter which primed my appetite for true discovery, in this case, the best of French-Canadian cuisine as served by the most famous restaurant in Canada. The intended effect achieved, it was the best meal I’d ever had in my entire life thus far.

I began with oysters from Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. My waitress Sarah, a fun, helpful, mildly flirtatious Montréalaise girl, then served an expectation-exceeding homemade spinach pappardelle with a red wine ragù and escargot. The broad pappardelle noodle attained a perfect balance between the heartiness of the pasta and the richness of the escargot ragù. “Stop trying to hide it,” Sarah told me as I twirled speckled green noodles around the prongs of my fork, “your smile is from cheek to cheek.” Next I had a venison torte whose layers of venison, foie gras, onions, and a braised anna potato fanned atop the dish were succulent in each bite, melting in my mouth with savory excess.

Anthony Bourdain with Joe Beef owners Fred Morin (center) and Dave McMillan (right). (Photo: Parts Unknown - CNN)

Joe Beef had won me over with the pappardelle, but it was the venison torte which compelled me to commit to what was unraveling as the best meal I’d ever had. Fittingly, “Juicy” began to play on the speakers, imparting a celebratory sense of triumph that could only be experienced through Biggie’s boastful assertions and confident command of cadence on the song. With my bill already nearing 100 Canadian dollars, I ordered a panko-crusted head cheese croquette with a mustard seed dijon, because (in a matter-of-fact way of phrasing it and in homage to a rap legend of my native Bay Area) I was “feelin’ myself.”

I’ve expended all words that could possibly be used to describe the head cheese croquette, mainly because it is hard to describe the denouement of a meal when the last entry isn’t quite a dessert. “I always love a bit of head cheese for dessert” Sarah joked. Fuck it, I knew what I wanted and while I’m speaking bluntly, the head cheese was damn good and didn’t disappoint.

After the meal I had an over-the-bar conversation with the host that received me at the door on who was the best rapper currently active: Drake or Kendrick Lamar. I argued for my West Coast compatriot while my counterpart presented a case for Drizzy. I was surprised that anyone would try to match Drake’s lyricism to Kendrick Lamar’s rhetoric; however, in a testimony to hip-hop’s seamless cultural fusion, I had completely forgotten that I was speaking to a Canadian. Perhaps the ambiguity of national identification would not have been the same had I been speaking to a national of a country across waters, but French-Canada was a particularly striking cultural anomaly not only for Canada but for all of North America.

I learned many things from the meal. Where politics is in some cultures considered to be a topic unsuitable for dinner table conversation, hip-hop, more than other genres of music due to its inherent accommodation of debate, can serve well as a mealtime topic of conversation. To a larger degree, hip-hop has the potential to invite people into culinary exchange the same way it has ushered outsiders into a historically African-American culture. From a music perspective, my meal at Joe Beef demonstrated the ability of hip-hop to prepare an appetite and celebrate the universal satisfaction of a good meal. Whether or not hip-hop can establish a reputation as a genre fit for curating a fine meal is left to restaurateurs across the world to determine, but I know that its potential to establish a dining ambiance is not accidental, nor is it some unnaturally-forced experimentation. I know, from passing the kitchen hallway on my way out of Joe Beef and seeing the words “CD playing” on the soundsystem monitors.

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See trailers for both Huang's World and Fuck, That's Delicious below.