beflygelt

2y

yh but that's exactly my point. TPAB sells better than morale and it was very incisive to the point of risking to alienate his white audience. hip hop used to sell because it was incisive and the artists were controversial and took risks

it's just like with films imo, they're running it as a business, find their formula to repeat and make money from. but that's how you suck the actual life blood out of it and just make entertainment, it's sterilized art.

this is something Drake pioneered with rap, making uncontroversial music which still poses as edgy and repeating ad infinitum bc ppl keep buying it. imo Kendrick is ironically not that far away from being like that too with these diss tracks.

it's just sad to me that we're as a culture just accepting (and even looking at this thread, defending) this status quo of running every creative industry into the ground with monopolized big players (Disney, UMG) running a business with mediocre art.

beflygelt

2y

one thing Kendrick could be doing which I'm not seeing so far rly is accepting that his voice rn isn't the most important and instead platforming a new generation of artists and/or connecting with fresh talent in other genres as well to bring fresh energy to his own music.

this kind of passing the torch is a super important part of hip hop and he wouldn't be where he is now without Dre and Snoop etc doing the same for him. TPAB wouldn't be the masterpiece it is without connecting with Brainfeeder artists. it's just another of many things which is telling me his success and ego seem to be getting to him and he's going down an Eminem route.

but who knows I'll reserve judgement on that till his next project drops it's maybe more a fear/ impression of a trend.

HURRYUP HYKEEM

2y

Whoever said that

deleteduser579

2y

a Euro as an OP of the sLums thread is some crazy work

onedeep

2y

lost souls crying into the void

SignedTwice

2y

Define connecting/platforming because he had a lot of new gen artists featured on Morale

Also did you not watch the pop out concert?

I feel like Kendrick just isn’t out taking pictures on IG with artists and posting co-signs so some of yall think he’s isolated when he’s been “connecting” with new artists

beflygelt

2y

platforming is using your big platform to give an up and coming artist a completely new audience/ potential breakthrough to big success themselves. Frank Ocean on Yeezus/Watch the Throne. slums on Some Rap Songs. etc

I rly can't think of Kendrick doing that with Morale or even much at all before. Rapsody def counts tho, maybe Steve Lacy

Gosh

2y

As a huge Drake fan he gave baby keem an entire song on Morale

Savior interlude is also one of my favorites

beflygelt

2y

yh he had Keem but that's also just lowkey nepotism lol so only half counts imo. Keem is cool but yh still doesn't rly make it the same thing

deleteduser579

2y

”TPAB sells better than morale and it was very incisive to the point of risking to alienate his white audience.”

what are you talking about? white liberals loved TPAB because it reinforced their prior values and scratched their white guilt itch

even towards the end of the album where he speaks to Pac, Pac talks about a violent uprising between the rich and poor and Kendrick responds “All we got is the music and vibes” it didn’t draw that much of a line in the sand from white liberals at all, why do you think it was so heavily embraced by these institutions?

beflygelt

2y

· edited

very fair that was a bit of a reach for sake of argument.

but I do think he took some risk in the confrontational way he connected slavery with current institutional racism, having a song called King Kunta, the album cover in front of the white house. and then also some creative risk fusing all these different traditions of black music to form a cohesive and still modern sound.

the whole album was inspired by a trip to South Africa and him having a sort of political awakening after visiting Nelson Mandela's jail cell.

it's fair that it was just kind of off its time too and also even got swallowed up by institutions and academia which maybe exposed that it wasn't as radical and confrontational as it was stylizing itself as, but at least there was some real ambition and force and anger behind which connected it with a wider fight of solidarity.

beflygelt

2y

platforming is using your big platform to give an up and coming artist a completely new audience/ potential breakthrough to big success themselves. Frank Ocean on Yeezus/Watch the Throne. slums on Some Rap Songs. etc

I rly can't think of Kendrick doing that with Morale or even much at all before. Rapsody def counts tho, maybe Steve Lacy

Valentine

2y

Morale - Blxst, Tanna Leone, Baby Keem, Taylour Paige

BP Soundtrack - SOB X RBE, Zacari x2, Babes Wodumo (made Gqom famous in 2016, Gqom led to amapiano. Kendrick platforming of such new yet popular african artists influenced Beyonce to do the same on Lion King Soundtrack)

DAMN - Steve Lacy, Zacari

TPAB - Rapsody, Thundercat, Anna Wise

GKMC - Anna Wise

Free YoungBoy

2y

Kendrick even told Ruby Rose of all people that he likes her music lol

beflygelt

2y

one thing Kendrick could be doing which I'm not seeing so far rly is accepting that his voice rn isn't the most important and instead platforming a new generation of artists and/or connecting with fresh talent in other genres as well to bring fresh energy to his own music.

this kind of passing the torch is a super important part of hip hop and he wouldn't be where he is now without Dre and Snoop etc doing the same for him. TPAB wouldn't be the masterpiece it is without connecting with Brainfeeder artists. it's just another of many things which is telling me his success and ego seem to be getting to him and he's going down an Eminem route.

but who knows I'll reserve judgement on that till his next project drops it's maybe more a fear/ impression of a trend.

Gosh

2y

As a huge Drake fan he gave baby keem an entire song on Morale

Savior interlude is also one of my favorites

YunoKilometers

2y

don't forget he had people like Blxst, Amanda Reifer, and Summer Walker on it as well. not to mention Sam Dew who was all over the f***ing thing. this guy is just saying s*** for the sake of saying s***

YunoKilometers

2y

don't forget he had people like Blxst, Amanda Reifer, and Summer Walker on it as well. not to mention Sam Dew who was all over the f***ing thing. this guy is just saying s*** for the sake of saying s***

Valentine

2y

I would take summer walker out but exactly lol

Gosh

2y

As a huge Drake fan Kendrick is one of the last rap artists that you really can’t predict his features because of how left field he goes sometimes

He could easily just have the most popular rappers alive on albums but that would make him as boring as my goat