DISPATCHES: Kendrick Lamar is Not That Good

I can’t review a video. I think on them too much and some unidentifiable source of guilt forces me to underscore the apologies I make with more detailed justification. That’s what happened here. I set out to review Kendrick’s “Humble” video but what you read below is what I feel I had to write.

Liking Kendrick Lamar has been fashionable since he rose to fame. Thinking otherwise is treasonous even in the hinterlands of rap country. Disagreeing with the statement that he is excellent at what he does would probably make you an asshole, at minimum, in the eyes of everyone who listens to rap. Objectively he's a megastar in terms of financial success, listenership and, shit, even critical approval. Merely mention hip hop and his name follows soon thereafter. But we at RYR don't play the same game you all do; and I'd sooner kick myself in the nuts than not give my honest opinion. Here, I’d like to note that I do not own contradictory views of things for the sake of attention or to be a contrarian; having thought about this for many months, years even, I feel that it maybe time to reconcile my discordant opinion. K-Dot needs my stamp of approval a googolplex less than he needs garageband bedroom producers emailing him beats; so out of respect for the democratically elected rap president, I will not offer fealty as if I were a subject, but my opinion as if I be a citizen, though it may displease the majority of you reading this at this very moment.

With each new release, I keep giving Kendrick Lamar an honest listen, reading along with his lyrics and waiting for that fire to be lit in me. I see the younger generation of kids watch his videos on the bus on their phones and smile ear-to-ear, nodding along gleefully, having found their salvation or, at the very least, solace. New video, new reviews, more praise and further edification of him as an institution in hip hop make me feel as out of the crowd as ever, as perhaps I ought to feel, when it comes to understanding and appreciating him. I’m beginning to think I’m incapable of getting “it”. How much data will I have to gather before I admit that I cannot feel what he has to offer? His passion, stage performance and, from what I can gather, mission all resonant with me on a political level, for anyone resisting the imposition of the State is kindred, but the structure, the style, the tone and the overall aesthetic of this video and what he does as an artist wholly, fail to appeal to me.

When I saddle into a Kendrick Lamar song, what I hear is often off-beat stream-of-consciousness lyricism, inverted word order, a style reminiscent of spoken word. It sounds to me like old school freestyle level writing with awkward sentence structure and unclear meaning; that critics like Anthony Fantano and your buddies from high school on Facebook and Twitter pass off as deep and profound. Perhaps it may very well be. Their justifications for their conclusions are not entirely unsubstantiated. His wording, his voice, his draw don’t appeal to me the way they seem to appeal to swaths of Kendrick heads. I’ve heard it called poetry. Poetry is the mirrored apex of math and science to the human potential for abstraction. No one understands all of it and few understand any of it. I am certainly no exception. I respectfully submit, having incurred his discography and everything he has had to offer to date, that I do not believe Kendrick Lamar to be as good as “they” say he is. There are at least 44 other rappers out there that deserve his spot more. But then again, that’s just like my opinion, man; and I’m just an angry man in an attic.