Recent Reviews

Best Album of 2015: To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

-

2015 has come and gone, but our DJ’s are continuing to reflect upon last year’s best album releases. Check out DJ Spinitch’s review of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly.

2015 Album of the Year Nomination:
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
Label: Aftermath Entertainment

kendrick

Review by Spencer Smyth
DJ Spinitch of Vernacular Veggies

Out of every album I listened to this year, there is a clear favorite distinguished in my heart and mind: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly.

My relationship with Kendrick’s music began when I heard the song “Ignorance Is Bliss” off his Overly Dedicated mixtape from 2010. I was hooked. I could feel some sort of forbidden charisma he had on the mic. I knew he had a definitive ability to rip tracks and compose cohesive, conceptual songs. It remains my very favorite song of his to date. His 2011 album Section.80 came next — a perplexingly unique and distinctive project that never fails to give me chills — one of my personal favorite albums of all-time. One year later, he released good kid, M.A.A.D city to ubiquitous critical acclaim. Unlike (what seems like) everybody, I wasn’t blown away by it. It is an incredibly well-thought-out project with a captivating storyline, but I never fell in love with its sound. To Pimp A Butterfly, however… Jiminy Christmas.

I was laying down with my eyes closed wearing headphones when the mosaic unraveled for the first time. K-Dot took me from the feeling of downfall, to laughter, to monstrosity, to entrapment, to sexual stagnation, to one of the deepest expressions of depression I’ve ever heard, to an anthem, to Lucy’s domicile, to a conceptual home, to the machinations of the hood, to the magnitude of the dollar, to loving your color, to a monumental hypocrisy, to the criticality of not faking the funk, to the importance of loving yourself, and ultimately to 2Pac’s mind — in that order — all to metaphorically establish a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon into a butterfly in a mere 79 minutes of my life. Afterwards, I put the headphones down and did not speak, move, or sleep (it was midnight on a Tuesday) for quite some time. I was on an emotional, conceptual rollercoaster with so many questions. 10 months later, I’m still riding it.

He enigmatically turned a turbulent flurry of thoughts and thick emotion into a cohesive conceptual masterpiece, with a gorgeous sound. For production, he chose to incorporate Terrace Martin’s saxophone brilliance, Thundercat’s bass wizardry, and the spacey sounds of Flying Lotus, Knxwledge and more. As far as the carefully-selected features, he got a diverse array of help from Snoop Dogg, Bilal, Rapsody, Ronald Isley, George Clinton, and more. My favorite track is “Momma” because I love the bottle-clinking production and the extent to which it’s open for interpretation. “Alright” is both a protest-anthem for contemporary #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, etc. marches and a banger heard at functions worldwide… That’s nearly, if not completely unprecedented in Hip Hop to my knowledge.

Kendrick’s ability to put together such a united, vast project with such widespread collaborations is simply remarkable to me. It embodies — in production and content — a wide variety of Hip Hop’s elements from the past, present, and future, while still offering a tad of that good ‘ol west coast flavor. When I first heard it, I predicted it would be my favorite album of 2015 and it has stood the test of time. After Section.80 had me fully infatuated, good kid, M.A.A.D city left me hungry; To Pimp A Butterfly proved to me that Kendrick has no foreseeable apex in sight. This album could go down in history as being in a class of its own. Even though many will say it isn’t in its own class, it sure wouldn’t take very long to call roll.

Thanks, DJ Spinitch! Stay tuned for more reviews of 2015’s best albums.

Album of the Year: Fetty Wap by Fetty Wap

-

The end of the year is nigh, and our DJ’s have been reflecting upon 2015’s best album releases. As the year comes to a close, we have called on DJ’s to break down why ‘their’ album is the album of the year. Keep checking back for more of 2015’s best beats.

2015 Album of the Year Nomination:
Fetty Wap – Fetty Wap
Label: RGF Productions/300 Entertainment

fetty-wap-cover

Review by Daniel Bromfield
DJ Daniel of Queer Breakfast

Fetty Wap’s self-titled debut focuses almost exclusively on hanging out or selling drugs with three other people in the mid-sized New Jersey city of Paterson. It’s a tiny, insular world even by the standards of the most fiercely regional rap, and there’s even less sonic variation to go with it; most of these songs are variations on the same formula, and the only guests are the two not-particularly-interesting other members of his crew Remy Boyz. But the amount of content Fetty milks out of this tiny world is staggering. He explores his situation from every possible perspective and emotional angle and keeps the songs from sounding redundant (though not quite justifying the album’s runtime, about ten or fifteen minutes too long).

 

Much has been said about Fetty’s relentless positivity, which is indeed one of his strongest suits; he’s one of hip hop’s most heart-on-sleeve romantics, as well as its leading crusader against ableism. But these aren’t the decadent “good vibes” you might expect from someone like Wiz Khalifa. Rather, his joy is a respite from the harsh reality of selling drugs to make a living. Bleak, desperate songs like “Again” and “Couple Bandz” contrast with the ecstasy of “Trap Queen” or “Jugg” to make it clear that Fetty doesn’t particularly enjoy the trap, and he’s in no way glorifying it. He revels in every moment he spends in his car with his beloved Trap Queen, every moment spent drinking cognac with his Remy Boyz. The sense is that without them, his spirits wouldn’t be nearly as high. Above all else, this is an album about making the best of a bad situation.

These themes reveal themselves with time. But this is pop rap, and its superficial pleasures make this great music in its own right. The most obvious of these is Fetty’s voice. His eccentric cadences superficially resemble those of Young Thug, but while Thugger’s voice ebbs and flows fluidly, Fetty’s is muscular – he goes straight for the gut. His vibrato is so gorgeous it makes his “yeaaahh baby” catchphrase sting a little every time it shows up in spite of being treated as a watermark. Yes, he uses Auto-Tune, but half the time it’s hard to tell if he even is or if he’s just that good a singer. And even if that tearful quaver in his voice is a studio creation, his sound engineer should receive every industry award for making him sound so goddamn soulful.

If you wind up enjoying Fetty Wap even on just a superficial level, I advise you to spend more time with it. I’m still noticing new things about this record; I didn’t even realize just how complex the layers and layers of ad-libs in the background are until a friend pointed it out. The first time I heard this album, I saw it as an unusually beautiful party record. Upon the second listen I was enthralled by what was going on in the background; listen three, I started to take note of the underlying emotions beyond the superficial joy he radiates. By the fourth listen, I was convinced I was listening to the best pop album of the year.

Thanks, DJ Daniel! Stay tuned for more reviews of 2015’s best albums.