Kendrick Lamar's music, in general, sounds like bad cartoon characters rhyming over nails-on-a-chalkboard beats. All right, that might be a bit aggressive. He's not, say, the AlanisMorrissette of hip-hop. "Swimming Pools" is a solid song and his verse on A$AP Rocky's "F***ing Problems" is not only straight fire, it gave us the most creative combined usage of the sounds "Dih" and "Deh." But as for the G.O.A.T. claims and the critics calling his latest album, "good kid, m.A.A.d. city" one of the greatest rap albums of all time, get out of my face. I'm not a music critic in the slightest, but to me, he's hip-hop's answer to Arcade Fire or Kings of Leon; somebody who sounds different enough to allow "true" genre fans to love him and lord their knowledge and fan hood of hip-hop over the masses of idiots who think music is "just for the radio" or "just to enjoy."
All of which leads me to this discussion of his verse on "Control," Big Sean's latest attempt to get hype for his upcoming album. It's a lackluster song overall, and won't be released with his album due to apparent sampling issues.
Lamar's verse is ostensibly a "shots fired" call-out of rappers he considers beneath him. First, he sets himself on the level of Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem and Andre 3000. He then proceeds to cast the ultimate hip-hop insult of "you're not as good as me so don't even try" upon a bunch of recent upstart rappers and Drake. Drake is the biggest name of the group, but is also clearly the least likely musician on the face of the earth to try and answer back to something like this.
Oh, and before he disses all of these rappers, he makes sure to say that he's friends with all of them so that their feelings don't get too hurt. I don't know too much about hip-hop, but I don't think friendly rivalries were always a big part of it.
It sounds aggressive, but on closer look it's really pretty lukewarm. But because of his status as the Hipster King of Hip-Hop (that's an insult, just fyi), this verse will likely draw grandiose and hyperbolic praise despite it's thinly veiled averageness.
And somewhere, Tupac rolled over in his grave (or Puerto Rican hammock) in disgust.
Contact Kevin Noonan at
knoonan2@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
