Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, Maaad City album. The more I listen to it, the more it astounds me. Give the entire album a listen and pay attention to his subtle tricks. He plays with a ton of concepts. He's flipping over all the established hip-hop values, satirising them so subtly that it's embraced by the general hip-hop audience without most even realising what the album is really about. For instance, there's a song where "R.I.P. Aaliyah" is repeated, but the reason he speaks of it is because (though he tip-toes) rap artists are expected to repeat it—and he rejects that. So here we can recognize that he's about to stir some shit. There's a powerful arc that drives through the album... powered by notions of the doing good, being pigeonholed as a bad kid, why excessive drinking is terrible, why shallow consumerism is bad for your soul, how we don't feel recognised by our own culture, and how he is going to be the new person to represent our relatively civically minded generation—all while (and by) ideologically rejecting established beliefs and music production models. (and so on) I'm a harsh judge of art and cultural exports, but in this album his central beliefs resonate with masterful touches, smart poetics, and, just as importantly, one hell of a sound. It truly is a masterpiece, even if you do not see eye to eye with him. This album might be sitting at the top of my all timers.
Definitely a very powerful album. An incredible piece of musicianship imo, it's very hard to make a concept album that coherent and still have the music be as good as it is. Glad there's other people that are into hip hop on here, what other hip hop do you listen to?