Album Review: Kendrick Lamar - Untitled Unmastered

At his best Kendrick Lamar doesn't sound like a rapper.

He sounds like a force of nature, like bottled, recorded lightning. To Pimp A Butterfly, his 2015 magnum opus, was a freeform modern jazz piece whose structure was pretty loose. We could reasonably expect this collection of offcuts from that chaotic masterpiece to be utterly incoherent. Not so. One of the joys of Untitled Unmastered's untitled collection of meanderings is the insight it gives into K Dot's mind. We hear our host riff, trying to find the thrust of a song. We hear the way he modulates his voice, independent of the studio tuning and pitch work that pulses through his recent releases. Untitled? Yes. Unmastered? Perhaps. Unprepossessing, unshackled, unputdownable? Certainly.