Kendrick drops lines like: "(It's happening) no more running from world wars/no more discriminating the poor/no more bad b*tches and real n****s wishing for green and gold, the last taste of allure"(Untitled 1). Untitled Unmastered has lyrics that are just as conscious and thought-provoking as any of Kendrick's other albums, but that doesn't reduce the impact of them in the least. These tracks are a bit lighter in tone like stated before but still feel as if they were recorded in the dead of night in absolute isolation from reality. Untitled 8 is another example as it has a definite Isley Brothers feeling to it as it is funky and soulful. There are also tracks on this project that are a bit lighter in tone like Untitled 3 with its soaring woodwind instruments, soft drums, and jazzy, poetry slam-esque snaps. The way the track fades in seems somewhat similar to the beginning of "u" from TPAB. Kendrick's eerie singing over the ghostly beat makes the track sinister and a bit unsettling. Another example of dark atmosphere would be Untitled 2. The whole track sounds like a descent into madness as Kendrick raps over the chaos. The drums are upbeat and are accompanied by droning synth keys as well as spiraling piano keys. Untitled 1 begins with its borderline disturbing intro that transcends into a very chaotic beat. Kendrick brings us live instrumentation that was introduced to us on his last album, but with a darker twist. It is with atmosphere and lyrics that this project solidifies itself as a worthwhile listen, and pleasant surprise.ĭark and raw are the best words to describe the atmosphere of most of this project. With Untitled Unmastered, Kendrick Lamar uses the element of surprise to evoke a feeling from outside the box upon his listeners once again. One would expect a release such as this which comes so soon after another one to be nothing more than a mixed bag of cuts that didn't make the album, but this is nothing of the sort. Untitled Unmastered is a bombshell in more ways than one. Producer Rick Rubin has previously annotated songs by Jay Z (the rapper read the second verse of 99 Problems straight off his laptop) and Johnny Cash (Rubin suggested the country star should cover Hurt by Nine Inch Nails), offering insight into how the songs were recorded.Not quite a year has passed since Kendrick brought us TPAB, yet he has already given us something else to spice up 2016 with. This revelation forces the listener to a deeper and broader understanding of the song’s “you”, and to consider the possibility that “hypocrisy” is, in certain situations, a much more complicated moral position than is generally allowed, and perhaps an inevitable one.
Common’s “her” is not a woman but hip hop itself Lamar’s “I” is not (or not only) Kendrick Lamar but his community as a whole. Here, Kendrick Lamar reveals the nature of the enigmatic hypocrisy that the speaker has previously confessed to three times in the song without elaborating: that he grieved over the murder of Trayvon Martin when he himself has been responsible for the death of a young black man. In “H.E.R.”, Common reveals the identity of the song’s “her” – hip hop itself – forcing the listener to re-evaluate the entire meaning and intent of the song. In this final couplet, Kendrick Lamar employs a rhetorical move akin to – and in its way even more devastating than – Common’s move in the last line of “I Used to Love H.E.R.”: snapping an entire lyric into place with a surprise revelation of something hitherto left unspoken. The author took to Genius, the annotation site that has recently received millions of investment money and hired former New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones, to express his thoughts on Lamar’s new song which references Trayvon Martin and contains the line: “You hate my people, your plan is to terminate my culture.”Ĭhabon focuses on the final lines of the track, which are: “So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite!”