To Pimp A Butterfly dropped in the midst of one of the most pivotal times in this country’s history. The album is, at its heart, a detailed rendering of the black experience in America as told through a painfully personal lens. It’s an intimidating work to summarize, but the premise in brief can be interpreted as follows: Kendrick Lamar reaches insurmountable levels of fame and realizes that this country isn’t changing fast enough for him to comfortably fit into his new roles as a big-money rapper/role-model/celebrity/artist/activist. TPAB’s narrative interludes are conveyed with the kind of urgency that sounds claustrophobic, because historically, Lamar can’t squeeze himself between prescribed boundaries of what famous people should act like, look like, and most importantly: speak up about. He knows how to spin contemporary issues into personal narratives with a story-arch worthy of fiction, but while Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City had its celebratory conclusion, TPAB’s loose threads of improvisation and samples that repeat like mantras leave us hanging. None of the societal struggles that Lamar wrestles with throughout have been laid to rest. There are dozens of appropriated moments that surface like ghosts throughout this record to reflect a conflict greater than his own self-reckoning, but a nod to The Color Purple in the “Alright” intro is especially climactic: “Alls my life I has to fight, nigga.” With that, Lamar reminds himself that his “deep depression” is justified – because not all of us have to. –Gabriela

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