Interestingly enough, the more I sit with it, featuring Kodak on the same album that has songs like "Auntie Diaries" and "Mother I Sober" is like a weird microcosm of the both the good and the harm we are all capable of as people, especially those of us with platforms. It doesn't make it work for me -- it still sucks -- but it is interesting given the album's subject matter.
Put me in the camp of people who aren't going to be able to get over hearing Kodak even if I "get" why he's on here. That verse adds nothing anyway so I guess I'll just be skipping it
Auntie Diaries is the reason I fell in love with Kendrick’s music. That’s exactly the kind of story and song I wanted to hear from him.
This but I would add Father Time (complex subject matter but the beat/hook/and his flow/delivery make it a song to vibe to imo) and Silent Hill ( minus the Kodak feature)
Yes, they are up on genius, incredible work on multiple songs by boi1da and sounwave, Pharrell produced a song, Alchemist, loving the production a lot
After one listen I definitely enjoyed this, reminds me of my first listen of To Pimp A Butterfly, there's just so much to take in. TPAB took me many, many listens for it all to sink in and make sense, I feel like this album will be the same. DAMN was immediate, but that's because of the type of record it is. Anyway, it feels amazing to have new Kendrick
I identify as straight so that could very well be why I feel this way and perhaps it wasn’t necessarily the best/most effective idea to repeatedly use the slur but those tweets are like almost bad faith level wrong and I generally like Craig’s tweets a lot
I’m certainly interested in hearing more opinions from the LGBTQ community on that song because it’s not my place to speak on it, most of the opinions so far have felt he did a good job advocating for trans rights but there were a definitely quite a few people saying they were turned off of the track from him not being a member of the community and still saying that word so much
Quoting this postbecause it had a really thoughtful and positive thread discussing the song from a trans person. This clicked with me, although I understand that no community is a monolith edit: @Nathan beat me too it. It also might be okay that people have different opinions on this one! There isn't always exactly one correct perspective to look at something from.
Didn’t mean to imply that there wouldn’t be a variety of reactions nor that some people being ok with it would make it less valid for others who would take offense to it but I can see how it came across that way, my apologies
I guess I’m just confused at to what the problem is. Like the rest of the album, it’s a very personal song. It’s an apology for using a hateful slur that he didn’t realize was causing real harm. And he’s trying to convey to others how it feels for the lgbtq+ community to hear that. Like yeah of course it’s coming from a straight perspective - Kendrick is straight and he’s talking of his own growth and experience around a trans family member. suggesting it’s the same as when other rappers use the f word in a derogatory way reminds me of that “robocop is copaganda” tweet, lol.