Album Review: Kendrick Lamar -- To Pimp A Butterfly

It’s clear mainstream hip hop, if not dead, had, for all intents and purposes, lost its soul.

Or at least sold it. It needed a saviour and, not to put too fine a point on it, that saviour is Kendrick Lamar. After two masterful albums the Compton MC has raised the stakes again with his third, a jazz and P-funk-powered set dripping in raw anger, sadness, love, hate and courage. It’s not jazz rap like the ‘90s, it’s jazz as in blue notes in a ‘30s Harlem basement, filmed by Spike Lee. ‘70s funk as in spaceships landing on stage. It’s black history. It’s black struggle. It’s album of the year.