'DAMN.' by Kendrick Lamar - Album Review

Commercial in sound, ambitious in concept.

★★★★ ½

Coming off the back of one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time in 'To Pimp A Butterfly', Kendrick was under an immense amount of pressure to drop something of the same quality. What he produced in the two years following was 'DAMN'. This is the Compton rapper's fourth studio album of his career and he was - and still is - one of the most popular rappers in the world. For any normal rapper they would feel this pressure and want to capitalise on it as soon as possible, but Kendrick has always had a talent for honing in on his craft and delivering amazing bodies of work, regardless of how much attention is on him. What he produced in 2017 on surface level is your typical Kendrick Lamar album with an unusually large amount of tracks that cater to the wider mainstream. However, when you properly listen and analyse it, this record is one of the most thorough and in depth portrayals of morality and life choices in all of music.

The roll-out for this album started on 23rd March, 2017 when Kendrick dropped, out of nowhere, the fourth part in his well established 'The Heart' series. This track just Kendrick sending hits out to the entire rap industry, which he has been known to do very often. The roll-out continues a week later when he drops 'HUMBLE'. This is the least sounding Kendrick song I think I have ever heard. It's a radio made, trap-esc banger with minimalist production and lyrically it is so far from what everyone is used to in a Kendrick song. It's braggadocious, expressive and so clearly made to garner attention for his new album. Which is exactly what it did. It debuted at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 but very quickly rose to the one spot, where it stayed for merely a week. That is enough attention however to get eyes onto Kendrick's upcoming album.

Now into the album itself. DAMN is a concept album that tackles the idea of 'wickedness' vs 'weakness'. These are religious terms were the wicked are the evil and/or morally wrong whereas the weak are men of faith that submit to God. Kendrick uses these terms to judge the way of living one's life. A life of wickedness being submitting to gang culture, being selfish, living with pride and straying further away from both family and, more importantly, God whereas weakness would be submitting to God, living with humility and living a life where his peers would call him 'weak' for leaving behind the gang life.

Kendrick in this album portrays how his life would play out depending on what path he chooses. In the original release of DAMN, Kendrick writes about how his life occurs through the path of weakness. He starts off as an arrogant man that is slightly religious but not enough to devote his life away, that has a vengeance against the world and seemingly God himself; this is both explicitly stated in 'YAH' and heavily shown in 'ELEMENT'. As the tracks progress he goes through his own personal turmoils and starts experiencing some of the deadly sins such as pride and lust. It is stated in YAH that 'Deuteronomy said that we've all been cursed' and this is a constant theme throughout this portrayal of the album. By the time we get to 'FEAR' he chooses the path of weakness in no small part due to his cousin Carl who's been leading him towards this path throughout the album. By the end of the record Kendrick has officially chosen the way of the weak and in 'DUCKWORTH' he explains that if he chose the wrong path without major role models in his life he would have been killed due to gang violence.

This is where we get to the reversed version of the album. DUCKWORTH is a story about how his label manager, Anthony, and father, Ducky, met years ago. Anthony would rob the KFC that Ducky worked at but Ducky was always nice to him so his shop, and by proxy his life, would be spared. Kendrick goes onto explain that if the situation went any different, Kendrick would have grown up without his father and would have died because he didn't have any role model to base his decisions off of. The gunshot and reversed audio of the whole album at the end of the song symbolises a new portrayal of the story. The path of wickedness. Kendrick starts off as religious in 'GOD', but after the death of his father he goes on a downward spiral of fear and sin and straying further from God. This is emphasised in the tracklist itself where GOD is the second track and as the album goes on we just get further away from it. Kendrick's wickedness is shown at its highest in the track 'ELEMENT', where he clearly states at the beginning 'I don't give a f***'; clearly rejecting the signs from God to change from 'FEEL'. YAH in this context of the album has the complete opposite effect to it's role in the original version. In DAMN's standard format, YAH is used to show that Kendrick may be on the fence with his faith but he can definitely still change his ways. In the reversed format however it is used to solidify Kendrick's choice of living wicked. DNA shows the completely unfiltered version of Kendrick in this format. All the qualities that he went onto gain by living weak he has now rejected, and all he is left with is the sin he has chose to live in. 'BLOOD' ends off the album in the exact way Kendrick predicted in DUCKWORTH, by Kendrick dying via gun violence due to rejecting God and embracing the life of sin.

Conceptually I think this album is flawless. Maybe a bit difficult to understand but once you actually do a deep dive on it everything connects perfectly. The only downsides I have with this album come sonically. On 'HUMBLE' I find the instrumental to be super annoying most of the time, especially when Kendrick gives one of his more irritating vocal performances it just makes for an un-enjoyable listen nine times out of 10. 'LOYALTY' is a good song just whenever it comes on I will skip it a lot of the time and in 'LUST' the vocal inflections can be ear-grating, eventhough stylistically I think it gives off the vibe of lustful desperation wonderfully it's just not what I'd prefer listening to.

Overall, this has to be one of the most well made albums I have ever listened to. Sonically, although I have a few gripes, I think it is fantastic throughout. The production is superb throughout and Kendrick's pen game is always at a high high level. This album has many tracks that I'd consider putting up there in the greatest of Kendrick's catalog and on top of the incredible highs it is really consistent throughout.