"But who the fuck prayin' for me? / Ain't nobody prayin' for me"
DAMN. is in contention for my favorite album of all time. it's easily my favorite kendrick lamar album and it's not particularly close—don't get me wrong, i love GKMC, i love TPAB, i love mr. morale, and i love all the others (well, maybe not Section.80: i think that one's just pretty alright), but DAMN. is in a league of its own. it was the first kendrick album that well and truly clicked with me. listening to DAMN. for the first time was kind of an eye-opening experience, one that i think only CHROMAKOPIA and American Idiot can really come close to. DAMN. was the first rap album i listened to that told a full-fledged story—it was my first kendrick album, and i will be forever grateful for that.
let's talk about DAMN.'s single best attribute: its lyrics. i think that it's, in no uncertain terms, a lyrical masterpiece. no wonder this shit won a pulitzer. every single song is packed head to toe with dense lyrics: it's an album that includes philosophical waxings on life, political and racial commentary, lamentations about hood politics and gang violence, and so many double entendres and hidden meanings that at times it's honestly a little hard to parse. all of these disparate commentaries all manage to fit together perfectly well. the flow (pun intended!) from kendrick talking about how life is about our relationships with people and objects and how they, in turn affect us in FEEL. and LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA., criticizing trump and police violence in LUST. and FEAR., to talking about how his life has been influenced by circumstances entirely out of his control in XXX. FEAT. U2. and DUCKWORTH. manages to feel so, so, so natural. it's incredible.
and that's not even mentioning the mastery that kendrick shows. there's not a single minced word, a single misplaced verse, a single questionable line: the story that DAMN. tells flows perfectly. the biggest part in that storytelling is, of course, kendrick himself. kendrick is rapping his ass off the entire album: just listen to DNA. once and you'll see what i mean. not only is everything coming out of his mouth super quick and punchy, but he also displays this amazing excellence over the backing track. he mixes the words he's singing with the instrumentation like the master we know he is—he's not overpowering the track. it's more like he's working with it, melding it into himself and himself into it. it's a phenomenal display.
and of course we can't talk about DAMN. without talking about the elephant in the room. "You decide / Are we gonna live or die?" depending on whether you play the album forward or backwards the story that it tells changes: which is something i've never seen in any other album that i've listened to. either the album begins with the cycle of violence continuing and ends with it breaking, with kendrick realizing that he wouldn't exist if his father died and taking it upon himself to reflect on his own mental state and take it upon himself to break it, or it begins with the cycle of violence continuing and ends with it spinning round and round and round. after all, if anthony killed ducky, kendrick would've never known his father. he would've been another gangbanger shot to death by a competitor.
a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
