I wholeheartedly disagree with the above. The culture needs to take responsibility for their participation in this exploitation. The real question is does art imitates culture or vice versa. Def Jam had two founders, the black one is a sexual predator on the run. It’s easy to blame another religion for the actions of your own people. This type of thinking will not bring any progress. We can go back to the origin story of all rappers you mentioned and they were the absolute worse with no money and influence. Drake was instrumental in putting so many contemporary rappers, including Kendrick. He has a great ear and is tapped into other cultures. He is ahead of his time. He foreshadowed Afro Beats since 2016, it only peaked a couple of years ago. This latest Kendrick project is unpleasant to the ear, and that performance although well structured, he could have missed me with virtue signaling. Kendrick is just an artist. a good artist. I never did buy that revolutionary stance. It gives his fans a false sense of optimism that there is a movement of some kind. There isn’t.
Drake’s origin is accurate and it is all fact but it’s coming off as if it’s a negative. Everybody was a nobody and you essentially need someone to put you on. Eminem to 50 Cent, and Drake and the dozen other rappers he helped get more visibility. Is Drake problematic sure. That’s a dissertation on it’s own. However, it is also true that sonically he is/was ahead of many of his contemporaries. From inflected acid jazz, world beat and house/dance music. That is a Canadian quality, openness. Drake father is African American from Memphis. His father was a successful musician and his uncle was part of Sly and the Family Stone! this whole notion that he has zero ties to the culture is asinine. As for the accusations of appropriation like the Jamaican accent is also more about people’s ignorance of other people’s cultures. In Canada, black culture is a melting pot of West Indians influencing the slang, accent and inflection of all youths black or white. In Toronto it’s Jamaican and in Montreal it’s Haitian Creole. It is common for non Haitians to speak, or at the very least use creole in their daily speak. In the same way that NY accents are a mashup of Italian, Puerto Rican, and sprinkled with some Yiddish. This is not me making a case for liking Drake but more dispelling the arguments that are levied against him that are actually his strengths. On the topic of Hip-Hop, it’s founding was exactly based in the melting pot of the black diaspora. The whole Soundboy DJ aspect is from Jamaica, the rapping is a traditional way of story telling in Africa that we all inherited. Many of the founding fathers of Hip-Hop were of West Indian decent. HipHop belongs to all of us but the way many conveniently forget it’s found I would liken to a form of appropriation.
I have many gripes with Drake, his lack of growth over the past few years, not saying anything meaningful, where he was innovative, now it just lazy and predictable. His exploitative business practices from what many other artists have claimed. His terrible stage presence. I guess maybe where the arguments over Kendrick and Drake beef, is somehow people believe that these two musicians who work for corporations care and could or would do anything meaningful IRL. Kendrick performed for the NFL, a show produced by Roc Nation (JayZ) who had no qualms throwing Kaepernick (the actual revolutionary figure here) under the bus. we also thought JayZ had a bigger vision. He is a capitalist like the rest of them. Revolutionary, black consciousness is Kendrick’s contradictory brand. the man won’t stop referencing gangs etc. This is where Drake wins, he does not pretend or try. es not that guy. he’s the guy that will make us dance all summer, great production, and many hashtagable bars. Last thing, do look up the rappers he helped expose to wider audiences. It’s interesting how the stories later unfold.
Yeah, I felt that... the "too ghetto?" remark made me laugh. Kendrick already did the Super Bowl once and the past what, four or five years have been millennial rap and R&B? And Kendrick falls squarely into that category.
isn't he pointing out that kendrick's fixation on the drake feud seems to be hurting hip-hop's popularity as measured by statistics? doesn't sound like a great way to make a buck.
what matters is rap culture, not the money, and Kendrick is ousting a vulture who spent a decade doing cultural appropriation of a half dozen regional sounds while exploiting every artist in his vicinity
kendrick is still a hypocrite but he won't admit it anymore. he's inhaled all the fumes and he thinks he's the greatest of all time. he slaughtered drake out of pique so that he could get on top of the pile and roar, there's nothing admirable about it. i don't have any love for drake, but i have much less love for kodak black. one of the main criticisms in 'not like us' is that drake pals around with sex offenders, it's an utterly hypocritical song and GNX is a self-satisfied album; it's the album of a man whose ego has eaten his art.
Sadly I didn’t exit while I could 😂 I got got by the clickbait. And wrote a scatching response only to realize it’s probably a lost cause. “Fucking trash” “DAMN was boring” “This beef is bad for hip hop”
I was holding on to hope for substance… it never came.
I initially was like “man I ain't reading this garbage “ but then thought look, let me put my personal opinion beside and see if maybe I'm being close minded or misunderstanding the articles premise….
the beef being bad for hip hop is where it lost me (though i wasn’t fully “in” anyways). that truly solidified the lack of understanding and context and i couldn’t do it anymore.
Very interesting essay. I find a lot of criticisms of Kendrick take on the property of being quite aesthetically appealing while, to me, falling apart with deeper analysis because they tend to project ideas onto Kendrick, like hope, over listening to the actual things he says. For instance, the lyrics of Euphoria are: “this ain't been about critics, not about gimmicks, not about who the greatest, It's always been about love and hate, now let me say I'm the biggest hater, I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress”. With that in mind, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would then say, “the beef is probably more personal than anything”. Kendrick's disdain is multi-layered, you can deduce that much of it is a lot do with protecting the spirit of hip hop from someone who he believes has damaged the art-form that he knows and loves... but he said unequivocally it was personal.
I think calling Kendrick "sanctimonious" relies on two misconceptions: a) he is attempting to be a political/moral figure and b) that Kodak's inclusion on his album means that he's “wrong” for calling Drake a paedophile. I write about the latter more in my piece here (https://www.yoursinigo.com/p/the-utility-of-morality) but in short: Kodak expressed remorse for his past conduct and if we see Mr. Morale as searching for personal redemption, Kodak's inclusion on the album is Kendrick giving him a shot of redemption which is actually a pretty consistent theme for Kendrick as a person. It is honestly a more compelling argument to say that Drake is probably not a paedophile and so Kendrick is wrong for calling him one on such a massive scale because it is not ideal for our general cultural attitudes towards protecting children to make false accusations of that size (or if its true, an international diss song is the entirely wrong way to deal with it.)
The other criticisms of "Kendrick will never hit as hard again because Kendrick was a definitionally Obama-era artist" (something that I've also written about but in tweet form: https://x.com/SaveInigo/status/1777014837270241398) and of him being anachronistic are slightly confusing, especially in the context of Arcade Fire who you say "mistook being called the meaning of “genius” here as dubbing astounding intellect and insight rather than its other usage as being used to dub astounding creativity and intuition”. You seem to insinuate that the bulk of Kendrick's genius relies on the political analysis of the era you’ve deemed his best — which makes me wonder why you made the Arcade Fire comparison at all seeing that the major appeal of Kendrick's music has always been his rapping ability, introspective lyrical prowess, narrative world-building, excellent song-making/arrangements and a range of other musical qualities. He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice.
What I believe is happening here is this: it seems you haven't liked Kendrick's evolution from “Good Kid Maad City/To Pimp a Butterfly” and don’t particularly like Kendrick as a person/artist at all. Which is absolutely fine. You're perfectly free to not like his voices or find damn boring and gnx/mr morale bad. But there's something that I like to call "chasing the argument" -- where one tries to root their dislike of something/someone in evidence but they’re working backwards from the disdain, resulting in confirmation bias that they then attempt to present as objective. This is why I’d say seeing Kendrick Lamar as "of the Obama Era" is a personal experience of placing him in amber rather than an actual criticism of him because if we were to hinge Kendrick's impact on his political commentaries, his inclusion of the Fox News quotes that “criticised his music” on “Damn” are extremely poignant artefacts of the first Trump Era and “Mr. Morale” included "Auntie Diaries", perhaps the only major rap record of the modern age that attempts a sympathetic understanding of the trans experience, which is an issue that has come to a head decidedly after Obama’s administration.
More evidence of "chasing the argument" explains things like the throwaway footnote that hints how colourism is a contributing factor to the feud, which it very much may be, but it is also the sort of statement that if you're going to mention at all, should probably include a dedicated argument/analysis. You also compare Kendrick to both Taylor Swift and Kanye in order to bolster your points but both comparisons only work on a superficial level. Calling Kendrick an “industry baby” like Taylor Swift dismisses the disparity of factors between not only their race, class and gender but the general level of artistic skill on display within their practices in a way that is perhaps too long to go into in a comment. Suggesting Kendrick will let his fans down like Kanye dismisses the fact a) Kanye still has a scary amount of supporters and b) the two gentlemen are fundamentally different personality-wise, something that you state, but not in a way that, to me, feels anywhere close to an accurate conclusion. You ask, “if the aforementioned questions Kendrick asked on albums like Good Kid and TPAB are indicative of the inner-life of the “real” Kendrick Lamar, in conjunction with other lyrics throughout his records about his fears and anxieties, then Kendrick Lamar seems like a man with profoundly debilitating paranoia, someone whose obvious mental problems combined with his overexposure will likely lead to a Kanye-West-level meltdown.” which is perhaps the most profound example that you have fossilised Kendrick in the Good Kid/TPAB era. The Mr. Morale album speaks about so much of Kendrick’s internal world with so much candour and self-reflection that shows miles, miles more personal growth and self awareness than Kanye has.
Thanks for helping me find the words for times where an argument is being chased, this is the kind of comment that is so truly constructive & well thought out & in a very generous spirit which I love too! This is exactly how I felt reading that …
Or. . .thanks for righting the listing Kendrick ship and resolving any cognitive dissonance I (you) may have experienced after reading such a trenchant critique of a favourite musical artist of mine (yours).
Unrelated but this sentence, “nothing that helps you get clarity on your own mind is wasted time” was something I needed to read today and is now going on a stick note at my desk. Thank you!
I was mentally preparing myself to leave a long ass comment and yours was the first one I saw. You articulated a lot of what I felt and some things I didn’t even realize I was thinking about. And it’s clear you listen to Kendrick. One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn. He said GNX and Mr Morale sucked but didnt state why, so he kind of lost me there because it started to feel more like a personal issue than a broader argument. Having said that, I’m glad people are taking shots like this. It’s good!
"One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn."
I'd go as far to say the author's journey ended *with* 'Damn' as they mention Kendrick's hebrew israelitism makes him "completely fucking insane" and Damn is obv the album where Kendrick declares he's an israelite. my point is mostly that Kendrick didn't stop growing as an artist or person just because certain listeners who enjoyed the commentaries of GKMC/TPAB thought he should've progressed differently.
i agree with a lot of this but oof, kodak black doesnt just get to “regret” sexually assaulting people and move on. SA is unforgivable. i like kendrick a lot but working with kodak was a terrible decision.
we agree, definitely check out my footnote on “utility of morality”. wanna stress that i’m not defending Kendrick’s decision to include Kodak or work with/shout out Dre, more just alerting the fact that the common argument of “he shouts dre but calls drake a paedophile” flattens Kendrick into one-dimension when he has a pretty consistent practice of trying to give Black men who’ve shown remorse and paid the legal price for their crime a chance (his threatening to take his music off spotify over xxxtentacion is another example). ultimately, he’s just an artist to me, I don’t know him so I don’t like him or dislike him. But I can see his actions and see a consistency to them that other people who dislike him try and say is not there. i don’t think that’s accurate.
sorry i didnt see your footnote! thats fair enough, im just tired of abusive men getting second chances when the survivors will have to live with the trauma they caused. But i see your point though and agree, thanks for your insight.
i'm with you, i think survivors deserve much better reparative practices and its something the state will perhaps never be able to help with. it'll need to come from communal care
i’m sure everything else you have to say was valid but i’d be really careful about the way you frame sexual violence, and “paying the legal price for their crime” as some sort of okay for us to essentially move on and welcome back into cultural and social life. and xxxtentacion showed no remorse btw.
your opening remark, "i'm sure everything else you have to say was valid" makes it sound like you don't intend to fully acknowledge the things i'm actually saying which, with all due respect, seems to be the case as i was very careful to speak *specifically* about kendrick lamar and what *i* have observed to be a pattern of reasoning behind *his* actions.
suggesting i'm saying "its okay for *us* to essentially move on" is a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what i'm saying. nothing i said is an ethical excuse. in fact, the contrary is true. my entire point is that kendrick is flawed and this idea that kendrick thinks he's some morally virtuous figure is a false framing.
so i am not commenting on any collective "us" but it is up to *you* to decide what you want to do about this pattern of reasoning i've identified from kendrick. do even you agree it is a pattern? does it make you dislike him? does it make you wanna withhold support? will you stop listening/patronising his music/going to his shows? do you think he's wrong to give people who've abused others/he may believe have been unfairly wronged by the state some sort of grace/second chance? each of us gets to chose.
perhaps *kendrick's* conduct is igniting a conversation in yourself. what do we do about people who have perpetrated terrible crimes? do we lock them away in zoos and coliseums where we don't have to see them? do we commit them to shameful exile? or should we just subject them to capital punishment? are they unable to change and therefore unworthy of life? what is the right way to deal with such people?
lastly: there was definitely an effort--genuine or performative--where xxxtentacion tried to change towards the end of his life (but also, my inclusion of X is perhaps completely moot because it was actually TDE that threatened to pull music from Spotify, which may have been Top specifically, it may have been agreed by the whole label, and it may not have been about XXX particularly--we don't really know the specifics)
i’m telling you that your comment was an interesting read and i don’t have a big opinion on the whole thing which is why i also liked reading the article. that should not take away from what i am trying to tell you. i did not say anyone was unworthy of life. i am telling you that there are ways of discussing sexual violence which, unconsciously, are extremely dismissive.
your reaction to my comment and your decision to class the heartless, unfeeling and true lack of remorse from xxxtentacion as in fact an “effort” lets me know the framework under which your sexual politics is operating. i am literally subscribed to you, i find what you have to say worth reading so this wasn’t a personal attack. i was just telling you that words can mean things in a way we don’t want to and it has serious potential to harm. that’s all.
I did not not say not to take in his words as something political, I said:
"He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice."
We can see Kendrick subverted Gil Scott Heron and said "the revolution *will* be televised" and then ended the set that he narratively constructed around himself playing "the great american game" with "TV Off" as a political statement but as I said, I prefer to view Kendrick how he views himself, which is an artist who is not trying to be a political leader, and as an artistic choice, i think it was all a coherent choice for the storytelling of the show.
Aren't you being a bit too charitable? If someone consistently says they don't want their art to be viewed politically, but consistently dons the trappings of a political artist making political statements, I don't see why they ought to be taken at their word
probably. i like kendrick's music and i think he's got some of the best creative aesthetics in the music business. you don't have to be charitable, though. nor do you need to take him at his word.
I feel like you can't hope to understand Kendrick at all if you haven't spent plenty of time deep in Mr Morale, which I personally think is his masterpiece (not a popular view, but that album is special to me)
That the author of this article thinks it can just be taken for granted that Mr. Morale is a bad album is ridiculous. It's one of my favorite records of all time. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough to spend the whole thing listening for hypocrisies. I guess one you've written someone off as a disingenuous pop star, you're off the hook for engaging with their work on its own terms.
Great comment, and excellent observation about working backwards from disdain.
“DAMN was boring” that’s definitely an opinion rather than a real argument against the quality of his work. One with which the Pulitzer committee would disagree.
What do you mean by "considering the context of what rap is"? Are you agreeing that the Pultizer Prize Committee is not a good arbiter of what is and is not relevant in rap music, or saying that it is?
I’m agreeing that yhe Pulitzer Prize Committee is an excellent arbiter of what is and is not relevant in rap music given the context of what rap music is. Both seek to recognize cultural impact through vernacular authenticity coupled with rhythm. The history of rap has always been storytelling. Which aligns exactly with the pulitzers recognition of excellent storytelling. Lamar made an inflection point with his prize in which Pulitzer was forced to recognize the impact and significance of rap as a legitimate storytelling technique within the African American diaspora (because it’s historically an American prize). This is further legitimized by the fact that HISTORICALLY writers of color have been excluded from literary prizes for not conforming to western ideologies of what constitutes great literature. Lamar proved otherwise by submitting and winning an historically excluded category as legitimate literature. None of this, however you might want to bleat about it, means that the committee CANNOT recognize vernacular greatness. To refute their decision based on your own opinion about who gets to decide what is legitimate and what is not makes you no better than the people who refused to acknowledged rap as legitimate poetry in the first place. Just from the other direction. If you want to be a critic you need to assess your own ability FIRST and then others after. A step you have left out of this entire process. As evidenced.
Thank you for so perfectly articulating everything that has bothered me about Kendrick, even if it meant dragging Arcade Fire to make your point. Real fans know those albums were shite anyway. Cheers.
Love this piece! Wrote a similar critique of Kendrick in my Substack post last week. The comparison to Arcade Fire is brilliant. Seeing them perform at SNL 50 kind of made me cringe—they were so cool until they just were terrible. Yes a creative genius isn’t necessarily an intellectual.
I agree with the writer’s critique of faux radicalism—the limits of challenging America (or Malcolm X said “Americanism”) while participating and even celebrating capitalism, and remaining apolitical and silent in the midst of a televised genocide, as well as (like I said) the comparison to Arcade Fire who fell to similar trappings.
And, unlike Arcade Fire, I do think Kendrick Lamar is intellectual, which makes his creative choices to stray away from his earlier socio-political stuff even harder for me as a long time fan
Interesting. I thought faux radicalism was the only point that held water… but it lost its basis the more I read and understood it was but a convenient launchpad to long-windedly say Kendrick is “Fucking Trash.”
I actually called out Malcolm in my response (that I’m sitting on), but from the vantage point that we’re deeply obsessed with making entertainers into leaders of social causes to our detriment… then continually moving the goalposts as though their motives will somehow change…
I would assume if you once thought Kendrick was our pariah then you were probably deluded long before a Super Bowl performance, yea?… (Curiously) What revolutionaries would you say you revere?
Please know I don’t mean this as a “what-about-ism” but back to the critique of Kendrick’s faux radicalism- feels non-specific, as in sub in J Cole and… then is the critique really about Kendrick or Hip hop? And was he just “better” than others at selling it?
To which I would ask what was/is your litmus test for believing Kendrick then (“his earlier socio-political stuff”) has diverted so much or was once devoid of capitalism?
Admittedly I believe that accountability requires relationship… which from me to Kendrick is simply parasocial. And hanging my hat on celebrity liberators is a lost cause, not that I have 0 expectations but I understand the conflict of interest exists in their job description. But also hip hop is a product… so rapping about liberation and doing the work are not synonymous in my mind.
If you read my work, you’d see my critique is in all celebritydom and cult like worship of celebrities. The critique is more so rooted in the cult worship and group think that latches on to symbolism that isn’t there, rather than Kendrick’s choices. I didn’t say his earlier work was devoid of capitalism nor did I say I saw him as a “pariah—,” which this piece touches on too. And also, I’m interested in Baldwin’s definition of the artist and their role in expanding our consciousness.
I don’t consider him a revolutionary (nor have I ever) saying as someone who works closely with SNCC vets, has worked with Huey Newton Foundation and was part of an organization called Assata’s Daughters. I am interested though in the legacy of artists who have worked closely with movements and the topical protest songs of the 1960s. I Have worked closely in preserving legacy of Freedom Singers through education and community—don’t need to get into it. Thinking of that tradition, I was at the Movement for Black Lives convening (before that organization became problematic) in 2015, when “Alright” had come out. The organizers at that event embraced that song and used it in the streets—does Kendrick owe those organizers anything? No, but I am curious in the role of the artist in a crumbling empire, in the midst of a class war.
I think it’s positive when people critique celebrities and any capitalists in a society that has really successfully co-opted identity politics (away from Combahee River Collective) original use of the term. I felt that this piece did that well.
I’m sorry but trying to make an argument about him “being the asshole who collects rent checks” and then citing an article which explains his real-estate portfolio, which includes absolutely NO mention of apartment complexes/multi-family residences in which he’s the active landlord, but is instead a collection of (albeit very expensive) single family residences seems kind of absurd. It’s known that Kendrick has put a significant amount of his own money back into Compton, with no strings (or even his name) attached.
I agree with that Kendrick’s political beliefs are quite shallow and are never fully articulated in his music. But this is because he mostly concerns himself with the cultural aspect of how black people are at the center of hip-hop and should be continued to be centered. This is one of the big reasons why his beef with Drake was so important, his disses weren’t just for popularity but to recalibrate who should be centered in rap music and culture and that should be Black Americans. Also, how can you say that DAMN is boring!? And GNX and Mr. Morale is just bad!? Like does Mother I Sober not mean anything to you?
This post had a lot of interesting points. I think you lost me with what felt like an emphasis of personal jabs and opinions stated as fact. I thought damn was phenomenal, loved Mr Morale, and GNX was mid. I also didn’t understand the placement of Lamar as a political rapper when he’s constantly said he does not want to be that, and has literally stated in songs, “I am not your savior”
that aside, it’s hard to go against the current, especially on a topic like this where so many people have loved or do love Lamar. Major props for taking a big swing
Please elaborate.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the above. The culture needs to take responsibility for their participation in this exploitation. The real question is does art imitates culture or vice versa. Def Jam had two founders, the black one is a sexual predator on the run. It’s easy to blame another religion for the actions of your own people. This type of thinking will not bring any progress. We can go back to the origin story of all rappers you mentioned and they were the absolute worse with no money and influence. Drake was instrumental in putting so many contemporary rappers, including Kendrick. He has a great ear and is tapped into other cultures. He is ahead of his time. He foreshadowed Afro Beats since 2016, it only peaked a couple of years ago. This latest Kendrick project is unpleasant to the ear, and that performance although well structured, he could have missed me with virtue signaling. Kendrick is just an artist. a good artist. I never did buy that revolutionary stance. It gives his fans a false sense of optimism that there is a movement of some kind. There isn’t.
Drake’s origin is accurate and it is all fact but it’s coming off as if it’s a negative. Everybody was a nobody and you essentially need someone to put you on. Eminem to 50 Cent, and Drake and the dozen other rappers he helped get more visibility. Is Drake problematic sure. That’s a dissertation on it’s own. However, it is also true that sonically he is/was ahead of many of his contemporaries. From inflected acid jazz, world beat and house/dance music. That is a Canadian quality, openness. Drake father is African American from Memphis. His father was a successful musician and his uncle was part of Sly and the Family Stone! this whole notion that he has zero ties to the culture is asinine. As for the accusations of appropriation like the Jamaican accent is also more about people’s ignorance of other people’s cultures. In Canada, black culture is a melting pot of West Indians influencing the slang, accent and inflection of all youths black or white. In Toronto it’s Jamaican and in Montreal it’s Haitian Creole. It is common for non Haitians to speak, or at the very least use creole in their daily speak. In the same way that NY accents are a mashup of Italian, Puerto Rican, and sprinkled with some Yiddish. This is not me making a case for liking Drake but more dispelling the arguments that are levied against him that are actually his strengths. On the topic of Hip-Hop, it’s founding was exactly based in the melting pot of the black diaspora. The whole Soundboy DJ aspect is from Jamaica, the rapping is a traditional way of story telling in Africa that we all inherited. Many of the founding fathers of Hip-Hop were of West Indian decent. HipHop belongs to all of us but the way many conveniently forget it’s found I would liken to a form of appropriation.
I have many gripes with Drake, his lack of growth over the past few years, not saying anything meaningful, where he was innovative, now it just lazy and predictable. His exploitative business practices from what many other artists have claimed. His terrible stage presence. I guess maybe where the arguments over Kendrick and Drake beef, is somehow people believe that these two musicians who work for corporations care and could or would do anything meaningful IRL. Kendrick performed for the NFL, a show produced by Roc Nation (JayZ) who had no qualms throwing Kaepernick (the actual revolutionary figure here) under the bus. we also thought JayZ had a bigger vision. He is a capitalist like the rest of them. Revolutionary, black consciousness is Kendrick’s contradictory brand. the man won’t stop referencing gangs etc. This is where Drake wins, he does not pretend or try. es not that guy. he’s the guy that will make us dance all summer, great production, and many hashtagable bars. Last thing, do look up the rappers he helped expose to wider audiences. It’s interesting how the stories later unfold.
spot on. glad to have read this.
Yeah, I felt that... the "too ghetto?" remark made me laugh. Kendrick already did the Super Bowl once and the past what, four or five years have been millennial rap and R&B? And Kendrick falls squarely into that category.
so are you against everyone trying to make a buck or is it just if they're black guys?
isn't he pointing out that kendrick's fixation on the drake feud seems to be hurting hip-hop's popularity as measured by statistics? doesn't sound like a great way to make a buck.
what matters is rap culture, not the money, and Kendrick is ousting a vulture who spent a decade doing cultural appropriation of a half dozen regional sounds while exploiting every artist in his vicinity
kendrick is still a hypocrite but he won't admit it anymore. he's inhaled all the fumes and he thinks he's the greatest of all time. he slaughtered drake out of pique so that he could get on top of the pile and roar, there's nothing admirable about it. i don't have any love for drake, but i have much less love for kodak black. one of the main criticisms in 'not like us' is that drake pals around with sex offenders, it's an utterly hypocritical song and GNX is a self-satisfied album; it's the album of a man whose ego has eaten his art.
Bruh I tried to suffer through this article but could not succeed hahaha
Sadly I didn’t exit while I could 😂 I got got by the clickbait. And wrote a scatching response only to realize it’s probably a lost cause. “Fucking trash” “DAMN was boring” “This beef is bad for hip hop”
I was holding on to hope for substance… it never came.
I initially was like “man I ain't reading this garbage “ but then thought look, let me put my personal opinion beside and see if maybe I'm being close minded or misunderstanding the articles premise….
Nah turns out the shit was garbage after all! 🤣🤣
Same homie. I’ll never get that time back 😔
the beef being bad for hip hop is where it lost me (though i wasn’t fully “in” anyways). that truly solidified the lack of understanding and context and i couldn’t do it anymore.
It's always so obvious when someone is writing from outside the culture!
Exactlyyyyy. Halfway through I knew this person wasn’t one of us lmao
Very interesting essay. I find a lot of criticisms of Kendrick take on the property of being quite aesthetically appealing while, to me, falling apart with deeper analysis because they tend to project ideas onto Kendrick, like hope, over listening to the actual things he says. For instance, the lyrics of Euphoria are: “this ain't been about critics, not about gimmicks, not about who the greatest, It's always been about love and hate, now let me say I'm the biggest hater, I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress”. With that in mind, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would then say, “the beef is probably more personal than anything”. Kendrick's disdain is multi-layered, you can deduce that much of it is a lot do with protecting the spirit of hip hop from someone who he believes has damaged the art-form that he knows and loves... but he said unequivocally it was personal.
I think calling Kendrick "sanctimonious" relies on two misconceptions: a) he is attempting to be a political/moral figure and b) that Kodak's inclusion on his album means that he's “wrong” for calling Drake a paedophile. I write about the latter more in my piece here (https://www.yoursinigo.com/p/the-utility-of-morality) but in short: Kodak expressed remorse for his past conduct and if we see Mr. Morale as searching for personal redemption, Kodak's inclusion on the album is Kendrick giving him a shot of redemption which is actually a pretty consistent theme for Kendrick as a person. It is honestly a more compelling argument to say that Drake is probably not a paedophile and so Kendrick is wrong for calling him one on such a massive scale because it is not ideal for our general cultural attitudes towards protecting children to make false accusations of that size (or if its true, an international diss song is the entirely wrong way to deal with it.)
The other criticisms of "Kendrick will never hit as hard again because Kendrick was a definitionally Obama-era artist" (something that I've also written about but in tweet form: https://x.com/SaveInigo/status/1777014837270241398) and of him being anachronistic are slightly confusing, especially in the context of Arcade Fire who you say "mistook being called the meaning of “genius” here as dubbing astounding intellect and insight rather than its other usage as being used to dub astounding creativity and intuition”. You seem to insinuate that the bulk of Kendrick's genius relies on the political analysis of the era you’ve deemed his best — which makes me wonder why you made the Arcade Fire comparison at all seeing that the major appeal of Kendrick's music has always been his rapping ability, introspective lyrical prowess, narrative world-building, excellent song-making/arrangements and a range of other musical qualities. He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice.
What I believe is happening here is this: it seems you haven't liked Kendrick's evolution from “Good Kid Maad City/To Pimp a Butterfly” and don’t particularly like Kendrick as a person/artist at all. Which is absolutely fine. You're perfectly free to not like his voices or find damn boring and gnx/mr morale bad. But there's something that I like to call "chasing the argument" -- where one tries to root their dislike of something/someone in evidence but they’re working backwards from the disdain, resulting in confirmation bias that they then attempt to present as objective. This is why I’d say seeing Kendrick Lamar as "of the Obama Era" is a personal experience of placing him in amber rather than an actual criticism of him because if we were to hinge Kendrick's impact on his political commentaries, his inclusion of the Fox News quotes that “criticised his music” on “Damn” are extremely poignant artefacts of the first Trump Era and “Mr. Morale” included "Auntie Diaries", perhaps the only major rap record of the modern age that attempts a sympathetic understanding of the trans experience, which is an issue that has come to a head decidedly after Obama’s administration.
More evidence of "chasing the argument" explains things like the throwaway footnote that hints how colourism is a contributing factor to the feud, which it very much may be, but it is also the sort of statement that if you're going to mention at all, should probably include a dedicated argument/analysis. You also compare Kendrick to both Taylor Swift and Kanye in order to bolster your points but both comparisons only work on a superficial level. Calling Kendrick an “industry baby” like Taylor Swift dismisses the disparity of factors between not only their race, class and gender but the general level of artistic skill on display within their practices in a way that is perhaps too long to go into in a comment. Suggesting Kendrick will let his fans down like Kanye dismisses the fact a) Kanye still has a scary amount of supporters and b) the two gentlemen are fundamentally different personality-wise, something that you state, but not in a way that, to me, feels anywhere close to an accurate conclusion. You ask, “if the aforementioned questions Kendrick asked on albums like Good Kid and TPAB are indicative of the inner-life of the “real” Kendrick Lamar, in conjunction with other lyrics throughout his records about his fears and anxieties, then Kendrick Lamar seems like a man with profoundly debilitating paranoia, someone whose obvious mental problems combined with his overexposure will likely lead to a Kanye-West-level meltdown.” which is perhaps the most profound example that you have fossilised Kendrick in the Good Kid/TPAB era. The Mr. Morale album speaks about so much of Kendrick’s internal world with so much candour and self-reflection that shows miles, miles more personal growth and self awareness than Kanye has.
Thanks for helping me find the words for times where an argument is being chased, this is the kind of comment that is so truly constructive & well thought out & in a very generous spirit which I love too! This is exactly how I felt reading that …
Or. . .thanks for righting the listing Kendrick ship and resolving any cognitive dissonance I (you) may have experienced after reading such a trenchant critique of a favourite musical artist of mine (yours).
always great to help find the words, glad it resonated
Well stated, this was the palette cleanser I needed to make up for the 10 minutes wasted that I’ll never get back
appreciate it bro, i'd say that nothing that helps you get clarity on your own mind is wasted time!
Unrelated but this sentence, “nothing that helps you get clarity on your own mind is wasted time” was something I needed to read today and is now going on a stick note at my desk. Thank you!
This was a fantastic comment, I would encourage you to publish it as a response.
probably gonna pass on that but i’m glad you liked it, bro!
I was mentally preparing myself to leave a long ass comment and yours was the first one I saw. You articulated a lot of what I felt and some things I didn’t even realize I was thinking about. And it’s clear you listen to Kendrick. One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn. He said GNX and Mr Morale sucked but didnt state why, so he kind of lost me there because it started to feel more like a personal issue than a broader argument. Having said that, I’m glad people are taking shots like this. It’s good!
"One critique I might have for the author is it sounds like their journey with Kendrick ended after Damn."
I'd go as far to say the author's journey ended *with* 'Damn' as they mention Kendrick's hebrew israelitism makes him "completely fucking insane" and Damn is obv the album where Kendrick declares he's an israelite. my point is mostly that Kendrick didn't stop growing as an artist or person just because certain listeners who enjoyed the commentaries of GKMC/TPAB thought he should've progressed differently.
i agree with a lot of this but oof, kodak black doesnt just get to “regret” sexually assaulting people and move on. SA is unforgivable. i like kendrick a lot but working with kodak was a terrible decision.
we agree, definitely check out my footnote on “utility of morality”. wanna stress that i’m not defending Kendrick’s decision to include Kodak or work with/shout out Dre, more just alerting the fact that the common argument of “he shouts dre but calls drake a paedophile” flattens Kendrick into one-dimension when he has a pretty consistent practice of trying to give Black men who’ve shown remorse and paid the legal price for their crime a chance (his threatening to take his music off spotify over xxxtentacion is another example). ultimately, he’s just an artist to me, I don’t know him so I don’t like him or dislike him. But I can see his actions and see a consistency to them that other people who dislike him try and say is not there. i don’t think that’s accurate.
sorry i didnt see your footnote! thats fair enough, im just tired of abusive men getting second chances when the survivors will have to live with the trauma they caused. But i see your point though and agree, thanks for your insight.
i'm with you, i think survivors deserve much better reparative practices and its something the state will perhaps never be able to help with. it'll need to come from communal care
i’m sure everything else you have to say was valid but i’d be really careful about the way you frame sexual violence, and “paying the legal price for their crime” as some sort of okay for us to essentially move on and welcome back into cultural and social life. and xxxtentacion showed no remorse btw.
your opening remark, "i'm sure everything else you have to say was valid" makes it sound like you don't intend to fully acknowledge the things i'm actually saying which, with all due respect, seems to be the case as i was very careful to speak *specifically* about kendrick lamar and what *i* have observed to be a pattern of reasoning behind *his* actions.
suggesting i'm saying "its okay for *us* to essentially move on" is a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what i'm saying. nothing i said is an ethical excuse. in fact, the contrary is true. my entire point is that kendrick is flawed and this idea that kendrick thinks he's some morally virtuous figure is a false framing.
so i am not commenting on any collective "us" but it is up to *you* to decide what you want to do about this pattern of reasoning i've identified from kendrick. do even you agree it is a pattern? does it make you dislike him? does it make you wanna withhold support? will you stop listening/patronising his music/going to his shows? do you think he's wrong to give people who've abused others/he may believe have been unfairly wronged by the state some sort of grace/second chance? each of us gets to chose.
perhaps *kendrick's* conduct is igniting a conversation in yourself. what do we do about people who have perpetrated terrible crimes? do we lock them away in zoos and coliseums where we don't have to see them? do we commit them to shameful exile? or should we just subject them to capital punishment? are they unable to change and therefore unworthy of life? what is the right way to deal with such people?
lastly: there was definitely an effort--genuine or performative--where xxxtentacion tried to change towards the end of his life (but also, my inclusion of X is perhaps completely moot because it was actually TDE that threatened to pull music from Spotify, which may have been Top specifically, it may have been agreed by the whole label, and it may not have been about XXX particularly--we don't really know the specifics)
i’m telling you that your comment was an interesting read and i don’t have a big opinion on the whole thing which is why i also liked reading the article. that should not take away from what i am trying to tell you. i did not say anyone was unworthy of life. i am telling you that there are ways of discussing sexual violence which, unconsciously, are extremely dismissive.
your reaction to my comment and your decision to class the heartless, unfeeling and true lack of remorse from xxxtentacion as in fact an “effort” lets me know the framework under which your sexual politics is operating. i am literally subscribed to you, i find what you have to say worth reading so this wasn’t a personal attack. i was just telling you that words can mean things in a way we don’t want to and it has serious potential to harm. that’s all.
Kendrick started the show at the SuperBowl by quoting Gil Scott Heron, how are we then not to take in his words as something political?
I did not not say not to take in his words as something political, I said:
"He himself, as the artist, consistently says that he does not want to be considered politically. That does not mean this music doesn’t include social commentaries but it does mean that if you're judging his music through a lens of social commentary then you're doing both yourself and the artist a disservice."
We can see Kendrick subverted Gil Scott Heron and said "the revolution *will* be televised" and then ended the set that he narratively constructed around himself playing "the great american game" with "TV Off" as a political statement but as I said, I prefer to view Kendrick how he views himself, which is an artist who is not trying to be a political leader, and as an artistic choice, i think it was all a coherent choice for the storytelling of the show.
Aren't you being a bit too charitable? If someone consistently says they don't want their art to be viewed politically, but consistently dons the trappings of a political artist making political statements, I don't see why they ought to be taken at their word
probably. i like kendrick's music and i think he's got some of the best creative aesthetics in the music business. you don't have to be charitable, though. nor do you need to take him at his word.
This is such an incredibly well-written response! Thank you for taking the time to write it because it truly put a lot of my thoughts into words
My god, this is smart and well said.
What a great and thorough comment, kudos
I feel like you can't hope to understand Kendrick at all if you haven't spent plenty of time deep in Mr Morale, which I personally think is his masterpiece (not a popular view, but that album is special to me)
Subscribed to you (for free for now) off this comment
That the author of this article thinks it can just be taken for granted that Mr. Morale is a bad album is ridiculous. It's one of my favorite records of all time. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough to spend the whole thing listening for hypocrisies. I guess one you've written someone off as a disingenuous pop star, you're off the hook for engaging with their work on its own terms.
Great comment, and excellent observation about working backwards from disdain.
I’ve never had my ideas so well explained without my help.
Perfect no notes
Inigo you never miss!
I have nothing left to add here. You ate, my boy.
just wow.
“DAMN was boring” that’s definitely an opinion rather than a real argument against the quality of his work. One with which the Pulitzer committee would disagree.
Noted rap aficionados, the Pulitzer Prize Committee.
compared to anonymous substack losers 😂😂😂😂😂
Well, if you consider the context of what rap is, yes exactly.
Pardon?
What I said.
What do you mean by "considering the context of what rap is"? Are you agreeing that the Pultizer Prize Committee is not a good arbiter of what is and is not relevant in rap music, or saying that it is?
I’m agreeing that yhe Pulitzer Prize Committee is an excellent arbiter of what is and is not relevant in rap music given the context of what rap music is. Both seek to recognize cultural impact through vernacular authenticity coupled with rhythm. The history of rap has always been storytelling. Which aligns exactly with the pulitzers recognition of excellent storytelling. Lamar made an inflection point with his prize in which Pulitzer was forced to recognize the impact and significance of rap as a legitimate storytelling technique within the African American diaspora (because it’s historically an American prize). This is further legitimized by the fact that HISTORICALLY writers of color have been excluded from literary prizes for not conforming to western ideologies of what constitutes great literature. Lamar proved otherwise by submitting and winning an historically excluded category as legitimate literature. None of this, however you might want to bleat about it, means that the committee CANNOT recognize vernacular greatness. To refute their decision based on your own opinion about who gets to decide what is legitimate and what is not makes you no better than the people who refused to acknowledged rap as legitimate poetry in the first place. Just from the other direction. If you want to be a critic you need to assess your own ability FIRST and then others after. A step you have left out of this entire process. As evidenced.
Ok Sarah
Thank you for so perfectly articulating everything that has bothered me about Kendrick, even if it meant dragging Arcade Fire to make your point. Real fans know those albums were shite anyway. Cheers.
Love this piece! Wrote a similar critique of Kendrick in my Substack post last week. The comparison to Arcade Fire is brilliant. Seeing them perform at SNL 50 kind of made me cringe—they were so cool until they just were terrible. Yes a creative genius isn’t necessarily an intellectual.
Genuine curiosity (not adversarial) … what did you love about this piece?
I agree with the writer’s critique of faux radicalism—the limits of challenging America (or Malcolm X said “Americanism”) while participating and even celebrating capitalism, and remaining apolitical and silent in the midst of a televised genocide, as well as (like I said) the comparison to Arcade Fire who fell to similar trappings.
And, unlike Arcade Fire, I do think Kendrick Lamar is intellectual, which makes his creative choices to stray away from his earlier socio-political stuff even harder for me as a long time fan
Interesting. I thought faux radicalism was the only point that held water… but it lost its basis the more I read and understood it was but a convenient launchpad to long-windedly say Kendrick is “Fucking Trash.”
I actually called out Malcolm in my response (that I’m sitting on), but from the vantage point that we’re deeply obsessed with making entertainers into leaders of social causes to our detriment… then continually moving the goalposts as though their motives will somehow change…
I would assume if you once thought Kendrick was our pariah then you were probably deluded long before a Super Bowl performance, yea?… (Curiously) What revolutionaries would you say you revere?
Please know I don’t mean this as a “what-about-ism” but back to the critique of Kendrick’s faux radicalism- feels non-specific, as in sub in J Cole and… then is the critique really about Kendrick or Hip hop? And was he just “better” than others at selling it?
To which I would ask what was/is your litmus test for believing Kendrick then (“his earlier socio-political stuff”) has diverted so much or was once devoid of capitalism?
Admittedly I believe that accountability requires relationship… which from me to Kendrick is simply parasocial. And hanging my hat on celebrity liberators is a lost cause, not that I have 0 expectations but I understand the conflict of interest exists in their job description. But also hip hop is a product… so rapping about liberation and doing the work are not synonymous in my mind.
Thanks for sharing your pov.
If you read my work, you’d see my critique is in all celebritydom and cult like worship of celebrities. The critique is more so rooted in the cult worship and group think that latches on to symbolism that isn’t there, rather than Kendrick’s choices. I didn’t say his earlier work was devoid of capitalism nor did I say I saw him as a “pariah—,” which this piece touches on too. And also, I’m interested in Baldwin’s definition of the artist and their role in expanding our consciousness.
I don’t consider him a revolutionary (nor have I ever) saying as someone who works closely with SNCC vets, has worked with Huey Newton Foundation and was part of an organization called Assata’s Daughters. I am interested though in the legacy of artists who have worked closely with movements and the topical protest songs of the 1960s. I Have worked closely in preserving legacy of Freedom Singers through education and community—don’t need to get into it. Thinking of that tradition, I was at the Movement for Black Lives convening (before that organization became problematic) in 2015, when “Alright” had come out. The organizers at that event embraced that song and used it in the streets—does Kendrick owe those organizers anything? No, but I am curious in the role of the artist in a crumbling empire, in the midst of a class war.
I think it’s positive when people critique celebrities and any capitalists in a society that has really successfully co-opted identity politics (away from Combahee River Collective) original use of the term. I felt that this piece did that well.
Understood, thanks for sharing your point of view 🤝🏾
lol just no
I’m sorry but trying to make an argument about him “being the asshole who collects rent checks” and then citing an article which explains his real-estate portfolio, which includes absolutely NO mention of apartment complexes/multi-family residences in which he’s the active landlord, but is instead a collection of (albeit very expensive) single family residences seems kind of absurd. It’s known that Kendrick has put a significant amount of his own money back into Compton, with no strings (or even his name) attached.
Wow Kendrick lives in your head 24/7.
Writing a multi page rant about him is.
>restacks posts from Pete Buttigieg
opinion irrelevant
Huh? Buttiege? WTH are you talking about?
I agree with that Kendrick’s political beliefs are quite shallow and are never fully articulated in his music. But this is because he mostly concerns himself with the cultural aspect of how black people are at the center of hip-hop and should be continued to be centered. This is one of the big reasons why his beef with Drake was so important, his disses weren’t just for popularity but to recalibrate who should be centered in rap music and culture and that should be Black Americans. Also, how can you say that DAMN is boring!? And GNX and Mr. Morale is just bad!? Like does Mother I Sober not mean anything to you?
This post had a lot of interesting points. I think you lost me with what felt like an emphasis of personal jabs and opinions stated as fact. I thought damn was phenomenal, loved Mr Morale, and GNX was mid. I also didn’t understand the placement of Lamar as a political rapper when he’s constantly said he does not want to be that, and has literally stated in songs, “I am not your savior”
that aside, it’s hard to go against the current, especially on a topic like this where so many people have loved or do love Lamar. Major props for taking a big swing
I hate to say it, but I kinda have to see what you look like for me to even begin to take your opinion seriously.
My thoughts exactly 🤷🏽♀️
this
And therein lies the problem.
Ding ding ding