Yep, that's a great one.
Momma has gone from being one of my least favorite tracks on TPAB to being one of the most comforting and replayable. That beat is what happiness sounds like. I also love the knowing, self-deprecating lyrical content and that wild turn the outro takes.
Yeah I really love Momma as well. I'm not sure how you ever didn't love it!
I've been on a Kendrick kick since the gig and the conclusion I've come away with is that if I were to try and redo my top 10 albums or whatever, this record would absolutely be in there. It speaks to me on so many fucking levels. The production is
phenomenal. I've seen it catch some heat from more... shall we say 'elementary' hip-hop fans because it's all jazzy rather than phat beats, but it's just so up my fucking alley, from the rabid funk of Wesley's Theory to the jazz fusion of For Free to the free-form supporting role jazz of the 'skits' like the end of Mortal Man. It has a very cohesive theme that is still easily grasped by someone who has had the privilege of growing up white and middle-class in Australia. Kendrick is rarely boastful, and when he is, it's either earned or it's a more meta examination of his status as a superstar when looking back on what he's come from. The samples are top-notch - Every N*gger is a Star, All for Myself to name a couple - the production combined with the full-band sound lend the record a liveliness that I'm not sure any other hip-hop album I've ever heard can compare to. It is willing to deepdive into themes that have been traditionally shunned by hip-hop - see u and i. It takes the fucking incredible single version of i, makes it a live performance and cuts it off halfway through for a message. What other album promotes itself with a massive single and then completely changes that single on the actual album?
How Much a Dollar Cost, The Blacker The Berry and Mortal Man all fill me with huge emotion. Just this morning I was walking into the office as the final few minutes of Mortal Man wound up. You have that incredible 'conversation' between Tupac and Kendrick, and then Kendrick reads his friend's poem - which, due to some new stuff I'm doing in my life, has resonated with me on a new, deeper level. The caterpillar who wants to be a butterfly, but is hamstrung by a culture and ideological and social norms that state a black man is weak if he becomes the butterfly, who is in touch with his emotions, and so pimps the butterfly for his own benefit and poisons it from the inside out. It's beautiful, heartbreaking stuff. And then as he's reading that you've got head-spinning, swirling horns that swell and swell until they reach the crescendo as Kendrick asks, with ever more increasing alarm and panic, for Pac. It fucking made me cry at 9am on a Tuesday morning right in the middle of the city.
It's just so fucking good. So good. A masterpiece in every sense of the word. One of only four records I can think of this decade that I'd give a 10/10.
), and I was defending both. I could definitely be wrong, have the wrong person, but that's how I remember it.
