If you haven’t been paying attention to Kendrick Lamar‘s groundbreaking album, To Pimp A Butterfly, now’s about the time to listen closely to one of the world’s most important artists.
Not because every track on To Pimp A Butterfly is strictly a Tom Haverford-passing banger, not because Kendrick Lamar performs like an absolute king, and not because he remains refreshingly humble while receiving floods of critical acclaim.
To Pimp A Butterfly transcends its status as merely a record – rather, it’s a bold meditation on the US, race relations, systematic struggles and the tensions America faces: without a hint of hyperbole, Kendrick Lamar has been branded a “lyrical genius“; the State of California recently awarded him the prestigious nod of being a “Positive Icon”, and civil rights protesters in the States recently chanted Alright at a protest against police brutality.
Kendrick Lamar’s description of his album as “honest, fearful and unapologetic“, and his prediction that it would someday be taught in colleges and schools also proved to be true: the artist recently visited a New Jersey high school that infamously began teaching To Pimp A Butterfly in an English class, after students were asked to “reflect on the dichotomy of black culture in America,” in relation to the album.
This gushing lead up is, of course, all to say that Kendrick Lamar’s latest video—for one of the punchiest, most experimental tracks on the album, ‘For Free? (Interlude)’—absolutely lives up to the album’s now impossibly-high standards.
It’s Great Gatsby glamour meets Birdman meets The Shining meets Whiplash.
Watch below.
