Given that Lamar is a talented and earnest young man with a lot to say and no big label nudging his music toward accessibility, it's only natural that he'd lose his way every once in a while. When he talks to girls, he sometimes recalls the supportively sincere Goodie Mob of "Beautiful Skin", actually counseling against cosmetics on "No Make-Up (Her Vice)": "Don't you know your imperfections is a wonderful blessing?/ From heaven is where you got it from." (Somehow, the redundant double-"from" makes the sentiment all the more adorable.) And he also recognizes self-destructive tendencies in himself: "I used to wanna see the penitentiary way after elementary/ Thought it was cool to look the judge in the face when he sentenced me." But it's not like he's some preacher/prophet figure he says "suck my dick" often enough that it gets boring. When he looks around, Lamar sees self-hate, nihilism, institutionalized oppression.
SECTION 80 ALBUM COVER HD CRACK
Everywhere he looks, Lamar sees generational symptoms of the kids who came from the era of crack and Ronald Reagan. "You know why we crack babies cuz we born in the 80s," Lamar raps on the excellently emo relationship-song " A.D.H.D.", and that's a theme that comes up over and over. It's a young thinker attempting to describe the world as he sees it. A couple of guys from Lamar's Black Hippy crew- those guys really sound like Souls of Mischief when they get together- show up, but the album isn't a guest-heavy affair. The production, mostly from relative unknowns like THC and Sounwave, is almost uniformly excellent- a spaced-out blur of astral horns and blissed-out Fender Rhodes, with drums that only knock when they need to.
Instead, it gives him a chance to chase his muse wherever it runs. Section.80, Lamar's new album, arrives on a wave of blog-based buzz, but beyond a couple of ill-advised choruses, it doesn't make much attempt to present Lamar to major-label A&Rs or to a wider audience. Instead, he's very much within the tradition of 90s groups like Souls of Mischief or the Pharcyde- self-deprecating and insanely talented kids who routinely ripped dizzy, slip-sliding flows over mellow jazz breaks. Lamar does exist within a strong West Coast continuum, but it has nothing to do with Dre.
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