Basking In Sin: Some Initial Thoughts On Kendrick Lamar's 'DAMN.'
The period of anticipation preceding the release of Kendrick Lamar's fourth album, DAMN., was intense, brief but methodically built. Three weeks ago, Lamar gave us the non-album track "The Heart Part 4," a warning shot to the rest of the game and an announcement of ambition; the following Friday saw the release of its single "HUMBLE." One week ago he announced the album's title and its release date. When DAMN. arrived last night, we were ready to dive in. This is an album that will take time to digest, but it's also one that offers pleasures and themes without delay. Here are our first thoughts. (And if you haven't listened to the album yet, it's available for streaming here.)
"Ain't nobody prayin' for me," muses Kendrick Lamar on "FEEL.," the track that jumped out during my first pass through DAMN. He fashions the line into a refrain — a cry of isolation that anchors an unfurling scroll of insecurities. This is King Kendrick in Book of Lamentations mode, exhausted and exasperated, stacking intricate rhymes in a way that conveys both lyrical mastery and mounting anxiety. Sounwave is the producer of the track, which features Thundercat on electric bass, extending a sonic tether to Lamar's masterpiece, To Pimp a Butterfly. There's also a lyrical tether: "I feel like this gotta be the feelin' what 'Pac was / The feelin' of an apocalypse happenin.'"
Lamar seems to be recalling his beyond-the-grave conversation with Tupac on "Mortal Man,"specifically a chilling section that augurs "bloodshed, for real." Or maybe that's not precisely what he's saying here. A quick pass can only get you so far with a new album by Kendrick Lamar, and is especially dense with signs and symbols, as if made for our annotative age. What to make of the fact that "," the album's first single, comes juxtaposed here with "PRIDE."? What's the implication of the cover illustration, which frames the word "DAMN." like the logo for TIME magazine? (How about the fact that the points of the "M" form devil's horns over Lamar's head, for a certain president-elect named Person of the Year?) Then there's the recursive elegance of the album's two bookends, and the way that the closing track ("DUCKWORTH.") loops back to the prelude ("BLOOD.").
