Kendrick's grasp on the way every aspect of his existence intersects is better than any other rapper's, each event in his life seemingly mapped out with clear causes, effects, and historical relevancies.
#Kendrick untitled unmastered review stephen a coon how to#
His songs might be masterclasses in how to contain a complex narrative to five minutes of lyrics, but as effective as they are as standalone pieces, none exist in vacuums. There's no clear throughline, as there was on TPAB, but this project gives us a more complete understanding of the connections that exist between all of the various themes Kendrick has wrestled with in his post- good kid music. We start off with judgement day ("Untitled 1"), then move to a counterpoint to "Momma"'s hometown optimism ("Untitled 2"), and then get a dissertation on racial stereotyping ("Untitled 3"). I say "essays" because plenty of untitled's tracks have themes as clear as TPAB tracks like "Complexion" and "How Much A Dollar Cost." At this point, it seems like Kendrick is unable to write songs or even single verses that aren't really about anything (call him the anti- Wale), with every word seemingly deployed in service of a storyline that may or may not involve characters, metaphor, and/or religious imagery. TPAB was the book, untitled unmastered are the extended essays Kendrick originally wrote as chapters but didn't fit properly into the final product. Many of the musicians whose fingerprints sculpted TPAB's indelible sound are present, and so are the overarching themes with which Kendrick wrestled on that album, but save for a few well-executed transitions, it's not all tied together very tightly. It's almost surprising to learn that so much was left off of an album that was so well-contained and clear in its focus, but this is often how geniuses work (more on that later). The dates included in every song title on Kendrick Lamar's 35-minute-long untitled unmastered suggest that pretty much everything here is a remnant from the To Pimp A Butterfly sessions. When it's someone who's time and time again proven himself to be exceptional, his outtakes contain stuff you'd otherwise never hear in hip hop, period.
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When it's your everyday run-of-the-mill rapper, outtakes might contain stuff you'd otherwise never hear from the artist in question. Whether it's studio banter, unfinished sketches, failed genre experiments, or alternate versions, these tracks are windows into the minds of those who usually give us polished, exhaustively edited final products- unscripted, unfiltered, uncut. Kendrick Lamar delivers a looser, more freewheeling set of tunes on "untitled unmastered."ī-sides, bonus tracks, and outtakes are usually released to show us the sides of artists that we don't get on their standard commercial projects.
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