Episode 7: Exploring To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

In this episode of Home Records, Slice and Emily dive into To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar. They explore the album’s ambitious blend of jazz, funk, soul, and hip-hop, unpacking its themes of identity, fame, race, survival, and self-worth. From the explosive energy of “King Kunta” to the emotional weight of “u” and “Alright,” they discuss the record’s cultural impact, groundbreaking production, and why it remains one of the defining albums of the 2010s. Whether you’ve lived with this album for years or you’re hearing it for the first time, join them for a conversation that’s part music history, part personal reflection, and part deep dive into one of hip-hop’s most important records.

Follow Home Records and subscribe wherever you listen.
Find us at @emilymyersmusic and @theslicemusic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hi, I'm Slice.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

And I'm Emily.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And welcome to another episode of Home Records, the podcast where we, two married musicians, pick an album at random from our 2000 piece vinyl collection and discuss its personal and cultural importance. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:32

I am good.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

We're recording at night, so I'm a little sleepy.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Yeah, we're uh we didn't get a chance to record when we usually do, which is usually in the morning. Uh so we're doing in the evening this time around.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I know. And you bribed me with coffee. You said, Do you want to get your coffee? But I said no, because I'll stay up all night long and can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Well, unless you do need to get something done.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Yeah, maybe I should be getting coffee. Honestly. Not the worst idea, to be honest. I mean, I Or I could get our we've got this weird mushroom placebo coffee in our kitchen. I could just fake it. Pretend my body can pretend I'm having coffee.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

It does taste pretty good though.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

It honestly does. Big big fan, actually, of mushroom coffee.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I think I I actually tend to be pretty productive in the evening more so than in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Yeah. Yeah, we're definitely night owls here.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yes. Although we do get tired because we're very busy during the day with the many things we do.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, I really think we need to um we need to stop this wonderful thing called working all the time. I think I think we should just, you know, F off to an island somewhere and early retirement. What do you say?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I think uh I think everyone should uh take that advice. And I I think people do.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

I feel like I'm having having an outer body experience where I'm like, did that sound bitter? I did not mean for it. I freaking I freaking love work. I am a workhorse. I really am. It's what I love.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Well, see, this is gonna be interesting because it's late and we're slightly tired, so we're gonna see if that creates any any new uh any new effects to what we're talking about, what how we talk in this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I definitely feel a little goofy.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

You don't know what's gonna come out today.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yep. And uh it'll be especially interesting for the album that we're talking about today, which is uh a bit so far um quite a departure from what we've usually talked about. So this time around, we're talking about a hip hop record.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

And uh not just any hip hop record, probably the best hip-hop record of the 2010s, and really, in my opinion, probably the best hip-hop record of the last uh 20 to 25 years.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah, you're obsessed with this record. I feel like the last record was an obsession of mine, and this is an obsession of yours.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, don't get me wrong, I was definitely plenty obsessed with Golden Hour. Um, for this record, I was definitely obsessed with it, but kind of in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

And the record we're talking about in this episode is To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Drumroll, please.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yes, drum roll. Well, oh, that's a late drum roll. Drum roll has to come before the I say the album title.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

See guys, I am tired.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

We are leaving that in. So this album originally came out in 2015, and I actually remember buying it on CD at the time it came out, and I just remember so many classmates of mine, because I was going to school for music at Chicago at the time, and I had a lot of friends that were talking about this record. Um, and so I took it upon myself to be like, oh, I'm kind of curious about it. I had kind of known about Kendrick Lamar up to that point, because previously he had performed at the Grammys with Imagine Dragons, and that was kind of what you could say was uh a breakthrough performance for him in the mainstream. And at that time, he was nominated for his album Good Kid Mad City, which was the album that came out before it's the album that came out before Te Pimpa Butterfly, and it was critically acclaimed, it was a hit record, um, it had some hits on it. I I heard some of those songs up to that point, but I definitely wasn't in in Kendrick yet, but I think I did at least listen to it. You know what it was? I bought Good Kid Mad City at the same time as I bought Topimpa Butterfly. So I actually bought those CDs the same day, but Topimba Butterfly had come out. So that was my introduction to the records, and I heard Good Kid Mad City and I like and I liked it, you know. I thought it was a really great record. Um, but then to Pimpa Butterfly just totally blew my mind.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

So when did you buy the vinyl then?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Oh, I bought the vinyl uh probably a few years ago. I wasn't really buying a lot of vinyl in 2015 yet. I was buying some, but not really a lot. So I I bought the vinyl just a few years ago. And this is like a regular pressing I have. They've since reissued it for its 10th anniversary last year, but mine's just kind of the standard version.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

And then for me, uh, I had never heard of this record until I started dating you. That is, and that is that.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, no, honestly, because most of my other favorite albums came out before I was born. This album for me is what I would consider the best of that has come out in the years since I was born.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

You know, it was an interesting time when this record came out. It's it's something you have to talk about, like 2015 when it came out, what was going on as a culture. Um, I don't I I to be honest, I think if this record came out right now, it'd still be just as relevant.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

It it is, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

But the narrative that we've seen around, you know, Black Lives Matter, um, the political and racial tensions that we've walked through as a country in the last few years, that is all you know, this this record was at the beginning of a lot of those conversations starting really.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Well, and some of those conversations had started because of a lot of the pro police brutality events that had occurred one or two years prior. Um, but also in a lot of ways, this record definitely foreshadowed a lot of things to come.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah. You said you had listened to this record uh just when you started dating me. I think I played you this record in the car once, and I know you release re-listened to it for the out for the for the podcast episode. Yeah. So what did you think of it overall?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Oh I think it's a very dense record in terms of this is not easy listening. You know, this is a record to listen very intentionally and to try and understand what what is really being said. Um because he is saying a lot. Every single track has a lot packed in.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, so you can't be a passive listener in this record at all.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Yeah, so I will be honest, I had to listen to it twice. Um the first time Yeah, I think it's one of those records where you it just takes a minute to digest more than other records.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I will say for myself, as far as the lyrical content, there were certain parts of the lyrics that I think stuck out to me more because the a lot of the songs are riddled with hooks, you know, and those hooks really I think spoke to me on an emotional level. I kind of understood uh the overall message, but also for me, because I was very familiar or was becoming very familiar with a lot of the musical styles that were incorporated into it, because the this is a hip-hop record that features um virtually all live musicians as well as beats. So, you know, a lot of uh musicians that had you know play that were really up and coming around that time. Yeah, Kamasi Washington, Terrace Barton, who also uh helped put put a lot of the beats and and arrangements together. Kamasi Washington, who had come out with his triple album, The Epic, that year as well. He did the string arrangements, Robert Sput Searrite on drums who had just previously played with Snarky Puppy. So you have all these uh and Robert Glasper as well, who was pretty much sort of the uh contemporary Herbie Hancock, if you will. So you had all these jazz or these would-be jazz giants that were featured all on this record, and they created uh this um I would say a musical adventure, this musical musical landscape, this this foundation for Kendrick to to wrap his poetry around. So it was that part, because I was into a lot of that music at the time, which going to college for music, you tend to kind of become familiar and acclimate to you know, sort of the virtuoso type of musicians and that sort of jazz fusion type of thing. Because this that's what the album musically has a lot of. It's a lot of contemporary jazz and jazz fusion, which and at that point was blending a lot of neo soul and RB influences, um, like it hadn't before, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Well, just in your life too, you were in Chicago, which is such a heartbeat for a lot of those influence and genres as well. So it just for you in your life, that that would have really hit at the right time.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Especially with the musicians I was surrounded by.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Especially people that were you know came from gospel backgrounds, from those RB rack backgrounds, and again, a lot of that bled into jazz and jazz fusion that was being created at that time.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah, you know, so yeah, that's something I love about the record. I love the different moments, sonic moments in this record. Um, you hear jazz, you hear funk, you hear gospel, you hear just all of it is woven through in a very intentional way.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And I would argue that Kendrick's rapping is also part of that arrangement. In and if yeah you know, even the lyrics aside, his the way he raps and the way he delivers is also its own instrument. Right. And it's such a it's such a wonder of how his delivery is juxtaposed in the same way, you know, a saxophone would improvise in that moment. I mean, it's like saying his voice is like a saxophone. Not necessar maybe not necessarily in timbre and sound, but definitely in phrasing, definitely in how the rhythm is juxtaposed with everything else going on. So that's to say, however dense the lyrical content may be, musically, it's the richest, if not one of the richest musical records that I've ever heard. And especially for rap. Especially for rap.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

I feel like it really changed the game. Mm-hmm. You know, that that to me was there is a clear before and after this record in that genre. Because, you know, in the in the last I mean, at this point, ten years, right? It's been ten years since this record.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Since this record, yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

So, you know, so many people who I love in that genre, like, you know, I'm obsessed with Dochi, Tyler the Creator.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Tyler the Creator, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

You know, they do things like that of blending genres within rap and and bringing up so much character inside rap, and it really does go back to this record, kind of allowing that interpretation, and and for the you know, to say the sonic palette of rap isn't just beats, it can be anything you want.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Exactly. And that was the thing, because before that we had sampling, and and you could do that, you could create these collages of uh sounds into beats through sampling, and you know, over time slowly there was more live instrumentation that would be incorporated, but in my opinion, I feel like to Pimpa Butterfly is one of is one of the pinnacles of that approach to really blending live instrumentation, a little bit of sampling here and there, and there's some tracks that we'll talk about that and do incorporate that.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Um it it's just at a at a whole new level at that point, and so I will say, like, for me, I feel like rap and hip hop in this genre is something I've gotten into later in life.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Same, same. I I was never really into hip-hop that much as a kid. I yeah, heard some of it, like, because that's the thing. Growing up with hip-hop in the 2000s is kind of a mixed bag.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And I say this as someone that as much as I enjoy researching about music and I researched hip hop, you go back to the origins of hip-hop, and it's such a rich history of how things were created, how things were instinctively innovated, just without any precedence, you know, and how that's evolved over time, and then you had all these different facets of hip-hop coming in the eighties and nineties, and in the 2000s, there was really great hip-hop, but for the most part, in the mainstream, a lot of that would just be mostly party jams, and you know, like I've said before, I'm not against dumb fun, but when it came to things that were um as lyrically deep or as musically interesting, at least for me, I know there's great stuff that was came out of that era now, but at the time growing up, I was not very aware of it. Granted, I was not really into pop music at that time, and that includes the hip hop that did become mainstream with a few exceptions, but none of it I felt was like that deep for me.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yeah, and maybe that's why I I mean maybe it is. Maybe it is just the way the game has changed where I what they're doing now, I appreciate more. I mean, that that could definitely be, I'm just not super well versed to be able to say that, but what I've heard that is just honestly blown my mind and it is on this record, is just the way they create the track. So it's the different sonic palettes they're using. It's using the lyrics in a very rhythmic way where it's not just rapping, it's spoken poetry, and things are said in certain ways that bring attention to certain words and inflections, and it's it's so fascinating as somebody who is a singer, you know. It it's just like it's a different way to express feeling, it's just in a totally different category of art to me in a lot of ways, and it's it's inspiring when it's done at this high of a level.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

And I will say that growing up in the 2000s, there was definitely this thing happening where hip-hop was so popular in a way that I mean, like you had white rappers like Eminem and things like that, and to me, that was some of the most memorable hip-hop that I remember growing up with. I didn't really get into Jay-Z until later on, and he started in the 90s but into the 2000s. But I I just remember like I would meet people that grew up with hip-hop at that time, and they could rap all the verses and things like that. Friends of mine that were, you know, my black Latino or whatever. And the funny thing for me is anytime I try to like learn a rap song, I do stumble. And I think about that. Probably the closest I could ever get to being able to replicate someone's flow is like True Goy from De La Soul, because they have a song. This is a side note, they have a song called I Know. And when True Goy uh does his verse, I'm like singing along, and I'm like, okay, my flow is kind of like his. So it's like, yeah, I if I was rapping something like this that was a little little laid back, not as not as forward, it's like like I could, I could, I don't know if I would ever pull off uh Kendrick's lyrics in terms of his delivery, you know. It's and that's the thing about Kendrick is he is a very singular artist in that way, and he's very he's very intentional with how he wants something to be created or what it what he wants it to say, both musically and lyrically.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Yeah, like just listening to someone like him. Like I said, it's such a different genre than what I do, and it's such a different medium to work with. It's like for me, it's it's like if if I'm working with oil paints, it's comparing to someone who's working with clay. Like it just feels different. But yet, if you work with oil paints, I feel like learning from someone who works with clay just stretches your mind. It just makes you go, oh, I had never even thought to you know, try that kind of technique. I that's that wasn't even in my toolbox, and that's how I feel listening to records like this. It just kind of expands my mind on what is possible because it it just doesn't, you know, every genre uses certain rules in their songwriting. And so when you listen to something like this, where it's you know, the height of this genre of rap and hip hop, but it's so different from what I do, it just stretches your mind on what is possible.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

And I feel that's why Kendrick wanted to work with these collaborators on this specific record, you know. And again, a lot of these artists were some of these artists were legends, some of them were up and coming. You think of Thundercat, Flying Lotus. Again, I mentioned before, um, Robert Glasper and Terrace Martin, you know. So I think I think Kendrick wanted to stretch himself musically uh as much as he could, too, because he does know music, he does understand it, and yeah, and not even just in at a hip-hop level, but just as a as a musician himself, you know. It's easy to pigeonhole the hip-hop artists as just being maybe for lack of better term, one note, so to speak. But yeah, but with Kendrick, he he really created this like a musician would, you know, he took all these ideas and gave it the direction that he wanted to uh to deliver this message. And let's get into that message, what we think that message is, or how we uh interpret that, because there's a lot of themes that are explored on this record that are both personal to Kendrick, but also um, like you alluded to before, um, um speaking to the times that it had come out in and possibly was foreshadowing.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah, I mean this record, I mean, to just put put it very bluntly, is the story of a black man in his narrative in this time. I mean, that is the foundation of this record. I I would say for me, you know, I think listening to this record that is so clear that I'm listening to this record as an observer. But I can imagine someone who is a black man or a black woman listens to this and feels so seen. You know, but I learn a lot from this kind of record.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Would you say it's because I also hear it as that, but it's also like a black man that has found success in America, yeah, and what that means for himself. Does that change who he is? That how does he grapple with his identity after he has found acceptance in these worlds that he never thought he would or think about? You know, what is that? What is what is that how does that change him or how what how does that define him?

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Right. And especially, you know, Kendrick talks so much about being from Compton. I mean, that's all over this record, and especially with what you're saying, you know, how do you go back to a place like Compton after the kind of success you've had? You know, and I mean he he talks about the gang life that he experienced all over this record, and you know, and just the poverty and the different things that he saw growing up. And does that leave you? Does it stay with you? Have you commercialized it? Which is such a facet, which is a hard thing, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

That's a very that's a very comp complex.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

That's a very complex feeling.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, and and Kendrick has and Kendrick's has revisited that theme time and time again in different records, and part of that has evolved into uh a savior complex that he explores the depths of in this record and in other records to follow.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

He does a beautiful job in this record, and I mean just this is part of his narrative as an artist of that, you know, what what you're saying about being a savior for his community, but also there's so much of a survivor's guilt on this record as well. And I think that's a very you can you can feel him grappling with that.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

And it's not just the people from his community, but it's also like the people that idolize him now after the success. And you know, is that real? Is that not real? You know, there's there's a lot of paranoia. A sense of paranoia that's explored in this record that uh the so at the time I heard this record, the album that it actually it made me think of almost immediately after I heard it, uh, that I felt like thematically was the most similar was The Wall by Pink Floyd. Because so just really brief synopsis, The Wall is based on Roger Waters' upbringing being the child of a uh World War II uh father who died in the war when he was three, and he's growing up in in England in World War II, post-World War II, and is surrounded by all these things that really have created in internal trauma in him. And while Pink Floyd were on tour for animals in 77, 78, he had an incident where he got mad at someone in the audience and he spit on them, and then the show ended, and that became the catalyst for writing the wall because the wall is about a character who goes through all these experiences and it it's he starts to develop these uh these delusions or illusions, if you will, of becoming a World War II dictator, overcome with power, uh because of success, or just like sort of these delusions of grandeur, you know, from this paranoia of like I need to control things, I can need to control myself when I'm not in control. Yeah, and so that's why this album to pimp a butterfly reminded me a lot of that because it feels like the main characters are going through a similar arc.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Right. Yeah, I can see that. Do you I don't remember, I remember reading about it when I was researching the album, but the the phrase to pimp a butterfly, do you remember what the metaphor is about?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I'm trying to remember at the top of my head.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

I if I remember right, you know, obviously caterpillar to a butterfly, it's the evolution. But I believe to pimp a butterfly meant you know, going back and kind of using your life as a caterpillar when you were not fully evolved and commercializing it. If I were if if I'm remembering right, is that kind of yeah, it's basically about exploitation.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah, you know, it's the word it's the exploitation of yourself before you're fully formed. Which I mean, if an artist doesn't relate to that, I don't know who does.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Or just yeah. I mean, I've you know, I've actually been just reflecting on this in my own journey because there's this there's this funny thing that happens when you embrace being an artist. There's a moment where you just kind of stop and you're like, Yep, this is who I am, this is what I'm put on earth to do. And you think that you're gonna go out and you're going to put out music and do all these grand things, and really what it ends up being is a journey back to yourself and where you come from. And you realize that really being an artist is just sharing the story of where you're from, but then it creates all these strange feelings of oh my gosh, am I taking advantage of sharing about my hometown and sharing about everything I did growing up and taking every heartbreak or every love story that you've ever had and making it into a product. It's a very, very odd thing to do. But at the end of the day, that's your job is to be a mirror on whatever you've experienced in life as an artist. But the psychology of it and walking through that is very, very odd and very niche, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

And I think what also happens along the way is that you feel that every now and then you're creating something that maybe feels like either just a stepping stone or a misstep. And for whatever reason, those are the things that get you the most attention or get you the most success. And sometimes you end up resenting that because you feel like this was not your best thing that you had made. This is not you at your fullest potential. You know, people like you, but they don't you feel like they don't like like either like the real you or the person that you're or the artist you're trying to become. There are some artists that have, I think, mastered or learned to master how to ebb and flow through that. Um I think of artists like David Bowie, you know, uh, he was able to do that. And it it's but but that's that's very rare, and that's a big reason why sometimes some artists either flame out, well they flame out, and that can be because they're coping with you know, through drugs and substances and things like that, and their mental health state becomes unstable as well.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

I think the artists who I see I'm not gonna say they have an easier time, but I do think artists that are kind of characters, like Bowie's a character, Bowie's a character, and he's created a lot of characters. He's created a character. Chapel Roan is definitely a character artist. There are certain artists that that is actually that is actually literally their product is to create an on-stage character that's larger than life. And I think those have a little bit of an easier time because it feels removed from who you are as a person. I I feel like it's kind of hard when your artist journey, you're more of an everyman artist. Yeah. And your stor your product essentially, and that's what's so hard, is you're taking yourself and you're becoming a product, which is a really psychological, funky thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

And I feel Kendrick definitely represented more of a persona, probably on Good Kid Mad City. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

And but Persona, that's that's a that's the word I was looking for, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah, but then with Topimpa Butterfly, that's when he's discussing the dichotomy of that, you know, this who how people perceive him versus who he really is. And we're mentioning also that a lot of that in the album is actually represented in these small dialogue interludes that evolve over the course of the album. Um, it's basically the um the Tapimpa butterfly poem, if you will. Um I or at least that's what we're calling it. And and and it it evolves into each new track that it comes right before because it's evolving, you know, the story, it's evolving his ever-growing paranoia and trying to get back to himself.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's some really fascinating tracks on this record.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Well, let's dive into some of those. Um I think it's a good time to. So I I just want, you know, right off the bat, the uh the first track, which um which it starts with a sample of this song, which is actually uh a Jamaican quasi-reggae song, which I cannot repeat the uh the title of, but it goes right into the song of Wesley's Theory. We hear George Clinton, you know, saying, Hit me, and then immediately we got that drum groove, Thundercats bass enters, and then he's starting to sing a little bit with Kendrick, and then he's singing. Uh, you know, Kendrick's rapping, Thundercat singing, and that's and that leads into I mean, you know, a lot of people like to talk about for records like a one-two punch of a beginning of record. This has the very rare, in my opinion, very rare perfect hat-trick of an intro to a record, and that is Wesley's theory into for free into King Kunta.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

I would agree with that. Yeah, yeah. That's one of the best very captivating intro.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah, and it doesn't let up, it just keeps it just keeps the momentum there. Um, and of course, for free, you know, is what it what the title suggests is it's a free jazz track with a dialogue and Kendrick rapping over it, um in a in very much a way that a saxophonist would improvise over a jazz uh uh a jazz track or jazz rhythm as well. And that of course leads into King Kunta, which I think was actually the first song I heard from the record before it came out. It was the single, actually. So I heard that song before it came out, and I'm like, oh, this is cool. And then hear it in the in the context of the record just totally blew my mind even more.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

And there's some great interpolations in that song. There's uh there's a James Brown interpolation, there's a Michael Jackson interpolation, and this is the song that where Kendrick is expressing, you know, where you're at the height of your powers, and now you're starting to understand what you're capable of. That's how I interpret it.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Yeah, I would agree with that. I love King Kunta, like it's a track about pride and power and ownership. It's so fascinating how the tracks are put together. That's the part that I really, really love, and that's what I mean by you have to intentionally listen to the tracks and the way they're put together. You know, I don't know how many people have thought about you have a choice when you're creating a record, the amount of seconds between a track. You get that choice. There's so many songs on this record that have no space, it bleeds right into the next, and that is purposeful.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Because it's not here's a song, here's a song, here's a song. He is telling you a story from beginning to end and hold on tight and pay attention.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Mm-hmm. And and that's a trend he's kept up uh with certain records from time to time. Probably most recently Mr. Browless and the Big Steppers, um, which is a record I love, but I've I I've only I only listened to it once. It's like maybe we'll cut this. It's like uh watching the movie Grave of Fireflies, the Ghibli movie. You will watch it once, you'll say it's the greatest movie ever made, or greatest animated film ever made, and you'll never want to watch it again. That's how I feel about uh Mr. Morales and the Big Steppers. But I digress with Tip and Butterfly, I could listen to this album over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

I do think it's important to say the track that I think most people would know, like the single off the record is All Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Yes, which retroactively became the anthem of Black Lives Matter.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Which is justified, honestly. Like, if you're gonna pick a record to take an anthem from, this is the record to do it, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

The funny thing is that the music video for that song, Alright, actually didn't come out until maybe a year almost after the album came out, and I think it was motivated by Black Lives Matter um being pushed forward. But what's interesting about the music video is that it actually incorporates a couple of snippets of Kendrick tracks that were never released, yeah, never put on any album. There's another companion album to this one called uh Untitled Unmastered, and it's kind of the leftovers that were recorded during the Topimba butterfly sessions. There's no real cohesion to that record, but there's some great tracks on that, and you could kind of see how they could have musically at least potentially been incorporated into this album. And that's to say, and I and the reason I bring that up is because again, in the music video for all right, it has a couple things that were never released. And when Kendrick performed at the Grammys when to Pimper Butterfly was nominated, he performed the medley of Black of the Berry and Alright, and then at the end he did this this sort of monologue rap song Um of with with with uh with the band playing, of course. One of the best Kendrick uh lyrics I ever heard, that was never released. People would have only ever been able to hear it at that Grammy performance. And that lyric was an extension of the themes of those songs like Al Right and The Black at the Berry, which both both of those songs relate to those themes of um being a black person in America and fighting for equality or fighting or fighting to not you know be exploited by by the powers of America.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Yeah, and uh just on that note, there are three tracks that I wanted to highlight, which is Black or the Berry. I thought that that track stops me and my tracks. I just think that uh the way that's said is fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

I mean, just blatantly about race and and sort of the comparisons of like how racism is discussed, how it's dealt with, and you know, how how what is that what you know how to how what are we how what is maybe not what is the solution, but is this the way we need to be talking about it? Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

And I just like I think what I love about this record is it sometimes I feel like race, and I know it this conversation right now is a very like intellectual conversation about it, right? Kendrick is not speaking about this stuff from an intellectual point of view, like, oh, I'm thinking about it. No, Black of the Berry is like this is how people are talking about this in my home. This is how people talk about this in my friend group, this is how people talk about this. Like, this is how my friends talk about this. So let's talk about it. Let's get it on the open. And I I just love that. I feel like he's the perfect person to talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

With great nuance and understanding that it is a complex situation. It's complex, and he's not, and he I mean, that's the thing about his lyrics, is like he holds all of that complexity so beautifully. And he but the thing is he can sound complex in his lyrics, but he's not being pretentious about it either.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Exactly, exactly. It's not intellectual, it's not pretentious, it's just like, dude, this is what it is. Yeah, and I just really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions with Kendrick that some people have when they have a hard time really getting into his his music or his style of rapping, is it's it's not even connecting with it, it's more of just trying to understand that place that he's coming from and understand what he's trying to say. And be and and the thing with Kendrick is one of the most interesting facts about him is when he was growing up, one of his great mentors was his English teacher. And it was his English teacher that really encouraged him to practice writing, to practice you know, poetry in some ways, you know. So um that was very much the catalyst for him to I think pursue this as an art form, you know, as something as a craft to really um aspire with.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Because it's a craft. You cannot listen to this record and not realize it's a craft, and so many people I feel like you know, I I feel like hip hop and rap is sometimes the underdogs in that where people don't take it seriously in that way. If you listen to the greats, the the records that people are doing, I mean you just you have to admit that it's beautiful. I also wanted to mention, um I thought politics was super interesting. I had a feeling you were gonna mention it. It's a really interesting track and also institutionalized. I I just think that that track um again, it's just it's just truth. Which it's a hard truth for us to hear, and we need to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Mm-hmm. And that's followed by one of my all-time favorites from this, These Walls. Yeah, which he's also I think he might have performed that too at the Grammys, or it might have been some other award show, and that features uh Balal and a Wise and Thunder Cat as well. That's just got a great um great uh musical backbed, you know, with the guitar lines and the groove there. It's kind of one of those like very smooth grooves, but it's still in your face at the same time. And the other two or three ones definitely to um uh highlight how much a dollar costs, which I remember I I remember that song being on uh Barack Obama's uh summer playlist of um I think it was either 2015 or 2060, because every year he puts out like a summer playlist or or just uh a list of his favorite songs of the year, and that was one of the songs he highlighted from that record specifically. And um I think probably the the most visceral track on this album, and which is saying something is probably you.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

And then I later on.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Which I is the complete yeah, I is the complete opposite of that.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Yeah, but I just love like again, I just love how the record's crafted and the fact that you have a you section, you have an I section, you have these tracks that are yeah, it's just fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

And now I'm remembering actually I was the first single. Yeah, but I don't think I don't think I listened to it, or maybe I listened to a little bit of it in passing, because but King Kunta was the first like song that I heard before the record. But I was the first single. That was like kind of the initial radio song. Our all right didn't really become a hit until later on.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

But that you feel like that's the biggest song now.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

It is the biggest song, absolutely. Um, and for all the reasons that we mentioned. Uh but yeah, um, you is probably my favorite just in terms of thematically what it's doing. It's Kendrick playing these characters and these different states of mind. It's like these he's playing, he's playing the different characters that are in his head that are fighting against each other. That's really what and if you watch the music video, it kind of gives that impression as well. And again, that's why I referenced the wall, because there are songs on the wall by Pink Floyd where it is these different characters, these different devil on your shoulders, so to speak, that are fighting to tell you what to do and what not to do. Yeah, and and that's where it all really comes to a head. And then that's when he realizes that that's when he has to s start setting himself back, just to get back to himself. And then, of course, you know, we get to the end of Mortal Man, which uh which he replicates this um this interview with Tupac when Tupac was still alive, you know, and to basically trying to sum up like the complexities of the themes discussed, you know, racism, brutality, black identity, black identity as being successful in America. And you know, this pro this might go without saying, but I think it's worth pointing out when we are referring to success for black Americans. I mean, we ha you have to consider the history of America and how black people were were treated and seen in America. In you know, pre-20th century and even further. I will say that I think in during the lockdown, there was this collective consciousness that definitely came to a head in the wake of George Floyd's murder that I think really made people really seriously sit down and think about, you know, how do we want to educate ourselves and how do we want to understand and discuss these themes, these ideas, this history, you know? And and and I and I think it has made a difference in some ways. We uh all obviously there's still work to be done, but you at least for a moment you could see that it seemed like the entire population was on board with with this idea of like, yes, how can we improve what the things that we that we weren't that that America was not great at before.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

See, we were in very different areas of the country when George Floyd happened. You were in the middle of Chicago, I was no, I was here in the Nashville.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

That was in 2020. Yeah, I was and you had and and you had and you hadn't moved yet here, but you and you were about to.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Yeah, I was in a very I was in a very rural area working uh for a make a church at the time. So it was a very, very different experience. Um, but what I will say is I I do think that situation made people wake up, yes. Made people grapple with it who had never realized racism was a thing. I mean that I had such different conversations, you know, I was having very odd conversations with people who did not even realize that there was racism today. Um so I don't know if I would go as far as to say everybody was on board.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Well, I think it was at least for me, probably not since the civil rights movement, which I obviously wasn't alive for, not since then has there been an uh a very large uh consciousness, uh you know, overall group consciousness within the country in really um speaking up about these injustices and racism in America at large.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Everybody had to grapple with it. Everybody had to face it.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

It affects it affected everybody in a way that again, not since the civil rights movement we we've never seen.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

You know?

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Yeah, I I do think that is true.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

And I and I honestly think this record to Bimba Barfly really did foreshadow that, but in very natural ways.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yeah, I think what I appreciate about this record this record for me, if it had come after that situation Would have it would have mattered just as much, but it would have felt differently. To me this record proves what we've known, which is all those issues and all those rumblings and all those things that we've we had to come head to head with during the George Floyd thing were already happening.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

And they were yep.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

And they were, you know, in the black community for years and years and years. And unfortunately George Floyd just I think it woke a lot of people up who who could live in a very pri privileged place of not understanding that.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah, but because of, you know, the technology that we have access to, it's very easy, you know, everyone saw it. You know, it was it was undeniable. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Um I I I did want to say something about ending with the Tupac.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

With the Tupac inter uh interview, yeah, incorporating that into the into the ending. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

One thing that I think I I've always just felt a little sad for him. I feel like he holds a lot of weight on his shoulders to be a good example and to speak into a community of people. And man, I think that would be hard. I think that would be so hard. And I and I and I feel like it is such a beautiful idea to end with an interview with Tupac. It's almost like a hey, you've done this.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Right, exactly. That and that was the reason is because Tupac tell me how to do this well. Yep, Tupac was in the same exact position, just like just like uh NWA before, and in terms of the artist that talked about, you know, coming from Compton and having those experiences and what that means in the grand scheme of you know being from America being from America.

SPEAKER_02 45:47

And and I don't know any other artist who holds that much weight, like that in that in that kind of genre and that kind of art and that just community. I just think it's a uniquely hard thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

And and I think for Kendrick, but that's because he cares about it and he's able to deliver those thoughts and emotions in a way that could connect with people, and in this album's case, not only lyrically, but musically as well.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

And again, I think these are the ideas and themes that Kendrick has explored throughout, you know, the records that came out after Tipimba Butterfly. So albums like Damn and Mr. Mouse and the Big Steppers. Not so much his more recent record GNX, that's definitely like Kendrick's as close to Kendrick's commercial party jam record as he's gotten so far, you know. But the other records have have also had uh heavy themes on that. I'm I like Dam. I'm not the biggest fan of that album, although that was the album that actually won him the Pulitzer Prize. He was the first hip hop artist to that is really bad.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

I mean, I get it. I get it. Yeah, I get why he would have won that.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

And I mean, even since Tipimba Butterfly has come out, even in 2020 when Rolling Stone put out their new list of 500 greatest albums of all time, but then they a few years later they put out um their list of greatest hip hop albums, and Kendricks was put in the top 20, which I don't think anyone should take lightly really. I know it's Rolling Stone, I know it's it's a whole political thing, but to have an album that's only a little more than five years old be in the top twenty, I mean, I think that says a lot about not only how great this record is, but how important it is for hip hop and for culture at large. And that's the thing about Kendrick, is he's anything he's done has always been in service of the culture, of hip hop culture, of black culture, of you know the culture that he comes from and he represents. And I think in the long run, that's what's helped him keep his head on straight, is that he always remembers where he comes from and knows that he is trying not to not not necessarily trying to save anyone or feel guilty about getting out, but more of saying, like, the best I can do is just speak about where I come from and give my and give my my and share my observations as honestly as possible.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

So was it this record that he won the Pulitzer for? Dam was.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Damn was Dam was to Pimba Butterfly. I mean, uh good chemically put him on the map, but Tibimba Butterfly just skyrocketed him. That was a number one record, and yeah, you know, sh in my opinion, it should have won the Grammy for Best Album of the Foundation.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

I was gonna say it did not win Best Grammy or Best Album of the Year.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Yeah, lost a tear since 1989. I'm still salty about that, by the way. And it's not that I don't like 1989, it's just that to Bimba Butterfly was clearly the best album of that year.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Again, I feel and the themes it was addressing.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Yeah, but I mean just as a piece of art overall, you know. Again, 1989's a great dumb fun pop record. Again, I'm not against dumb fun, but to me, and I listened to both albums that year, and I'm like, or actually 1989 came out in 2014 before the after the contention period. But to me, Tim Pimper Fight was just a better record. And I and there were other albums that were nominated there that year too that I thought were better than 1989 anyway. But um, yeah, no, but then damn the album came out a couple years later, that won the Pulitzer Prize because that was also a huge hit album, too, and it had the hit Humble on it. I actually got to see Kendrick live in 2016 in London. He was playing Hyde Park and he was still touring for Tibb and a butterfly, so I got to hear a good amount of those songs in his hour-long set. He played right before Florence of the Machine of all people.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So here's my question.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

Yes, go on.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

Would you recommend this to kind of a first-time casual listener for Kendrick?

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Hmm. That's a very good question.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

It's a hard one. It's a hard record.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

I mean, if you're looking to choose violence, maybe, but but jump in the deep end, friends. Jump deep well, and but that also I think depends on the sonic palette that you're used to, you know. Yeah. Because, you know, nowadays there's so much genre bending that happens in nearly all music, especially hip-hop. So if you're into the genre bending that fuses that neo soul jazz fusion, um, that this album not that this album in this album didn't introduce that, but it definitely, you know, did it at a at a whole new level, then you can dig right into this and just go off to the races. If you want to start with something uh softer, then my recommendation would be good kid Mad City or Damn. Either one of those albums, because both of those albums have have more sonic similarities to each other than to to pimp a butterfly.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Yeah. Well.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Well, do you want to do the two questions?

SPEAKER_02 51:13

Yeah, I feel like we we're at a great time.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

We're yeah, we're in an excellent time.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Go us. So we always end our podcast with the same two questions. The first one is why does this record to Pimpa Butterfly matter to the culture?

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Well, um, once again, I think that this album really pushed hip hop forward in a lot of ways. I think it spoke to a lot of people at that time and it foreshadowed a lot of uh ideas and themes that we as American people and even in some cases people of the world had to grapple with and understand. And musically it's just such a rich album. It's it's um musicianship at its best, and Kendrick is one of the finest uh hip hop artists of all time, really. And even this, which is for all intents and purposes, his third album, yeah. Um just to be coming that far out of the gate with it. Um, you know, there it's such a it's you gotta listen to it with headphones. That's one thing I'll say with it, because I that's how I first listened to it. You gotta listen to it with headphones in the dark, which is how which is how I was told to listen to pet sounds by the beach boys. So I I I went the same route. But you're just gonna find yourself, I think, in this very interesting world and be exposed to something that maybe you didn't realize was there before. And it's important to the culture, um, you know, because of where it stands in hip hop, where it stands in American music. And this is an album that stands the test of time. And I don't I don't say that for a lot of albums that have come out in my lifetime, but this one definitely does the most in my from from my my life experience.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

I would also say, like, is does this record matter to the culture or is it just a reflection of the culture? And I think it's really it's really the latter. Like, this record is just a great timestamp for what was going on with people at this time.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

I agree with that, but time will only tell when its relevance will um be revisited, which tends to happen with the greatest records, you know. Because even if you take out the cultural element into it, you might find yourself having a personal connection with it from your own experience. And maybe not even just as being a black person, but just really anyone that um struggles with that dichotomy of identity between identity and persona, how how people perceive you versus how you perceive yourself.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Yeah, that's a good point. Like race is definitely a big part of this record, that's why we have to chat about it, but it it's also it's built for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Yeah, it is. And and Kendrick, I think, is very intentional with that sort of very subtly. Yeah, you know, definitely. Yeah. And what's the second question?

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Second question is why should someone listen to this record? Why would you pull it off the shelf and say, hey, I think you should check this out?

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Because you are going to reward yourself with a very enriching musical and lyrical experience that is very unique to this record in particular, and also unique to Kendrick. And especially, I think, even if you're not into hip hop, I think if you're into other genres, or maybe you're you know, historically hip-hop has not always had the most positive rap, so to speak, but I think even if you're not as much into the lyrical or the rapping component to it, you could still get a very enriching musical experience out of it just by listening to the instrumentals, just by listening to you know, the saxophones and the bass lines and the keyboard parts and just all this happening. And maybe one thing to take away is think about listening to Kendrick's rapping, like you're hearing John Coltrane play his tenor sax or Jay Dilla is making his beat with his sampler. You know, think about everything as an instrument and how it's all combined in juxtapose and how that creates this great work of art.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

Yeah, that's why I would say someone should listen to this record. Is it just is a truly great work of art? And I think as somebody who's maybe not as familiar with this genre and this style, again, I just think it really stretches your mind on what is possible when it comes to expression.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Absolutely. Well, thank you everyone for tuning into this episode of Home Records. If you like what you've been hearing, you can follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are available.

SPEAKER_02 56:14

And if you'd like to show your support, please give us a five-star review below and be sure to spread the word to all your friends, family, and enemies. Thanks again, guys, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

Bye everyone.