The highly-anticipated return of Kendrick Lamar, hip-hop’s reclusive king, has been a wild ride. From a mysterious open letter announcing his final album with TDE to dropping his first verse since 2017 on “family ties” with cousin Baby Keem, Kendrick is back. But his new material has fans wondering: why does he sound like that?
Yes, the Pulitzer-Prize winning prince of poetry-rap has been sounding…goofy. Vocal experimentation isn’t new for Kendrick — see his first big hit, 2012’s “Swimming Pools”– but on his latest verses, the rapper takes undeniable glee in spitting outlandish bars.
In “range brothers,” which recently dropped on Keem’s debut full-length The Melodic Blue, Lamar breathlessly repeats “Top of the morning, top of the morning, top of the morning, top of the morning,” each “o’ dramatically enunciated and each “p” harshly spat. The ad-lib feels like a rumbling chant, summoning a strange hip-hop force to “get this shit” with Kendrick.
It’s not that Kendrick has never had fun with his bars, but he built his name by rapping about the hard truths of his life–vivid narratives of Compton streets, the systemic racism that kept his family in poverty, and the overt and covert violence enacted on Black people in America. 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly was a sprawling, political ode to Black America and 2017’s DAMN. won a Pulitzer Prize, making Lamar the first rapper to do so. The pressure to remain a “serious” rapper was always at an all-time high for the West Coast native.
As Kendrick enters his victory lap with TDE, he seems eager to just enjoy the medium of rap music. Trading squeals on “range brothers” with Keem, where Kendrick’s falsetto could compete with 645AR, they really embellish the family dynamic. Keem tweeted that he and Kendrick have even created four new languages together, because “rap was boring.”
me and dot created four new languages bro. rap was boring. so we start making new languages
— baby keem (@babykeem) September 9, 2021
rangebrothers caveman brother
For all the jokes, Kendrick has proved he can still rap circles around the best of them. If anything, his newly playful style feels well deserved. Let the man have some fun! As he proves on “family ties,” he can still smoke on your top 5 and send your favorite rapper’s album back to the drafts with one verse. We can tip our hats (and say top of the morning) to that.
What do you think of Kendrick’s new sound? What are you expecting from his upcoming album? Interact with us on Twitter or Instagram @FMHipHop and let us know what you think!
By Hattie Lindert | Twitter |