Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city

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My favourite tracks are Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe, Backseat Freestyle, Money Trees, m.A.A.d city, Swimming Pools, Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst and Compton.

I wish he'd use his fast rap more often though. It's very impressive.

Rigamortis still my fav Kendrick song.
 
After initially feeling cold towards this album, I love it now. Excellent production, great sequencing, great rhymes, palpable emotion...it's got everything. I DON'T care for Kendrick's high pitched delivery and probably never will, but I really feel him anyway. It's received some comparisons to Illmatic, and while that doesn't quite work because Nas brought himself up from nothing with that record, whereas Kendrick already had a cult in place (which is why this album is necessary; it explains where he came from and why he believes what he does), both Illmatic and GKMC exhibit a great deal of melancholy borne of hardship. It's a beautiful thing to hear, and very genuine.
 
I think in this day and age it's almost as impressive as Illmatic and it's stature will probably grow over time. It's nowhere near as good though :tongue:

My favs are defs Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe, Money Trees (dat sample :drool:), m.A.A.d city, Swimming Pools and Compton.
 
Definitely 2012's biggest grower. I don't know what kind of brain-washing subliminal shit Kendrick stuck in there, but I can't stop playing this album.
 
Hahaha I never noticed the album comes full circle at the end of Compton:

"Momma, got to use the van real quick, be back in 15 minutes!"

Changed my mind: Sing About Me is the best track, though the second half of M.A.A.D. City has my favorite beat. That's one is on some NWA shit right there.
 
Yes. I absolutely hate his delivery on that song (is he trying to be a squeaky voiced teen or something?) but the beat in the G-funk section is out of control and the storytelling is totally intense and on point.
 
The discussion is old but I think the lyrics are mostly brilliant. Some great stories.

My favorites are Peer Pressure, m.A.A.d. City, Swimming Pools and Sing About Me.
 
This really didn't live up to the hype for me, at all.

As with El Mel's original impressions, the voice really bugs me on a number of tracks. And I don't find the production as eye-opening as on that of MBDTF. A decent listen overall but nothing too special to me.

I don't think Channel Orange is the Best Album EVAR, or of the year, but it's a much worthier consensus #1 IMO.

Will give this another shot and see if it grows on me as we'll.
 
I don't know anyone who loves this album that didn't give it a chance to grow on them, for what it's worth. It reveals itself more with each additional listen.
 
Yeah, I feel like I've been a good example of that. Hell, basically anyone still posting in this thread would be. If you give it the time of day, you will be rewarded for it, simple as that.

I liked Channel Orange right off the bat but have cooled towards it lately. It doesn't tell me anything now that I didn't hear on the third or fourth listen. Still really damn good though.
 
Made it through my first listen of this today. It's an immediate winner for me.

What struck me the most is the overall sense of rebellion against the bravado and posturing that's so much a part of both rap music and black culture. He's certainly not the first rapper to go against this (think Black Sheep, De La Soul, and many others), but it's a message that still needs to be out there.

Right after listening to the record, I turned on ESPN2 to wait for PTI to come on and ended up catching part of the documentary on Benjamin Wilson, who was shot and killed all because an argument got out of control when two kids couldn't let the other one-up them. What started with one kid bumping into the other ended with homicide. Ridiculous. Seeing that just drove this album home for me even more.

Re: the 72 hours line. That sort of chest-beating just isn't Kendrick, or this album. In context, that song is - according to P4K, which is spot on here - "the moment in the narrative when young Kendrick's character first begins rapping, egged on by a friend who plugs in a beat CD. Framed this way, his "damn, I got bitches" chant gets turned inside out: This isn't an alpha male's boast. It's a pipsqueak's first pass at a chest-puff."

Totally agreeing with this. That's not to say that bravado doesn't have its place in my listening habits--I love me some Kanye West and G.O.O.D Music, for example. But I think Kendrick Lamar here is processing how it was to grow up around the people he did. Despite being an overly educated white girl from Oklahoma, I feel the same way sometimes about the people who helped shape me. And while the album does get a touch preachy (quite literally), for the most part, I think he presents his progression through life with an attitude of "It was what it was." No judgment on others, but seeing that he wants something different for himself.

That message, plus the beats and the flow, make this a really nice record. And since the comparison's already been made, I'm taking Kendrick Lamar over Frank Ocean any day. It's all a matter of taste, really, but this record speaks to me and makes me bob my head. So I'm giving it a hearty :up:.
 
Anyone who thinks this is an album full of masculine bravado and hip-hop cliches has maybe heard it once, max. There's no possible way to make that conclusion about it if you've made any effort whatsoever to examine its contents.
 
This really didn't live up to the hype for me, at all.

As with El Mel's original impressions, the voice really bugs me on a number of tracks. And I don't find the production as eye-opening as on that of MBDTF. A decent listen overall but nothing too special to me.

I don't think Channel Orange is the Best Album EVAR, or of the year, but it's a much worthier consensus #1 IMO.

Will give this another shot and see if it grows on me as we'll.

I was pretty underwhelmed on first listen as well; now I love it. Very addictive.

Not sure the problem everyone has with his vocals though. They don't bother me at all.
 
Unfortunately the words "video" and "Backstreet Freestyle" do not have a position connotation for me right now. There's video of me going nuts on it late late late into New Year's Eve after the venue was vacated. So I'll just watch later.
 
"Backstreet Freestyle," of course, being the remix with "I Want It That Way." Woops.
 
Made it through a second listen finally, and it was better this time around. The roommate was digging it as well, and we just let it flow right into Section.80.
 
Unfortunately the words "video" and "Backstreet Freestyle" do not have a position connotation for me right now. There's video of me going nuts on it late late late into New Year's Eve after the venue was vacated. So I'll just watch later.

Does said footage appear on YouTube?
 
Warmed up to this more on the second listen.

Also checked out the bonus disc, or the collection of bonus tracks from various versions. I'm guessing I'm crazy for loving those tracks immediately compared to my lukewarm response to the proper album.
 
Man, this album seems to just skyrocket in my estimation with every listen. Phenomenal stuff.

I liked Compton a lot on first listen. Now I'd rate it almost last, though I still like it a lot.
 
"Compton" is rad. "Real" is probably my least favorite track, which is saying a lot considering there's a Drake appearance on another. Or maybe "Poetic Justice" is just good enough to where it can withstand Wheelchair Jimmy bogging it down with his terrible voice.
 
The last two tracks are a bit too much for me. I feel like the album's over when Sing about Me ends.
 
"Dying of Thirst" actually could be a logical end point considering it has the same prayer as the album opening.
 
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