The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, March 17, 2015 — 5

Kendrick’s new 
album surprises

Lamar’s ‘To 

Pimp a Butterfly’ 

is mandatory 

listening

By ADAM THEISEN

Senior Arts Editor

All of us have voices in our 

heads that tell us we’re not good 
enough. They feed into our inse-
curities, 
say-

ing we’re not 
strong enough, 
smart enough, 
talented 
enough, 
rich 

enough, deter-
mined enough, 
sane 
enough 

to be success-
ful, to do what 
we need to do. 
Kendrick Lamar hears these 
voices, too — probably much 
louder than most of us. But these 
voices don’t stop Lamar. Instead, 
they’ve fueled him, providing 
the unrelenting engine that has 
created To Pimp a Butterfly, an 
album that will never be forgot-
ten by anyone who listens to it.

You could compare To Pimp 

a Butterfly to other anti-fame 
albums, ones that express the 
dangers of celebrity. You could 
compare it to other records that 
seem to capture mental break-
downs on tape. You could even 
compare it to other trippy, para-
noid masterpieces that have 
been produced in studios. But 
you won’t, because while there’s 
other music that tries to capture 
some of To Pimp a Butterfly’s 
essence, Kendrick Lamar’s lat-
est work is so strong and singu-
lar, grabbing you by the collar 
and dragging you into its world 
from the opening seconds, that 
your mind won’t be able to focus 
on anything except what Lamar 
wants you to hear.

The trajectory of the album 

can be summarized by a poem 
repeated and expanded upon by 
Lamar throughout the tracklist. 
Lamar’s self-doubt and conflict 
leaves him “screaming in the 
hotel room,” surrounded by evil. 
So he goes home (to Compton? 
To Africa? To his true inner self? 
All are possible interpretations). 
“But that didn’t stop the survi-
vor’s guilt,” Lamar says, so he 
realizes he needs to teach oth-
ers about his message of respect, 
unity and love.

The biggest reveal of To Pimp a 

Butterfly is just how deep Lamar’s 
post-fame 
depressive 
spiral 

was. Opener “Wesley’s Theory” 
recalls Kendrick’s early dreams 
of hitting it big and reminds him 
that the rise is the easy part — it’s 
staying on top that’ll stress you 
to the point of insanity. Next, 
on “For Free?” Lamar is berated 
by women who attack his inse-
curities over a classic jazz beat. 
Additionally, “u” simulates a 
true breakdown in a hotel room, 
as Lamar hears a drunk former 
friend from his neighborhood 
tear him to shreds for abandon-
ing where he came from. Lamar 
raps these verses with theat-
rical pathos that he’s brought 
before on songs like “Sing About 
Me,” and these tracks are just 
as intense. But Lamar saves his 
sharpest barbs for celebrity, 
record companies and the cul-
ture of fame. The album’s char-
acter of Lucy (possibly short for 
Lucifer?) tempts Lamar on “For 
Sale?” Lucy promises to move 
Lamar’s mother out of Comp-
ton and into a mansion — all she 
wants in return is trust, loyalty 
and a signed contract.

Considering 
how 
wide 
in 

scope the album is, it’s incredible 
that the songs of To Pimp a But-
terfly are somehow even more 
cohesive than the songs of the 
good kid, m.A.A.d city. good kids’s 
subtitle, “A Short Film by Kend-
rick Lamar,” was well-deserved 
— when you closed your eyes, you 
really could see Compton — but 
the singularity of Lamar’s cre-
ative vision is even more mature 
and more intense on this latest 
release. Every song plays a very 
specific role in the overall state-
ment that To Pimp a Butterfly’s 
narrative makes. While on its 

own, “The Blacker the Berry” 
may have sounded like a com-
plete indictment of the streets 
Lamar comes from, in context, 
it’s presented as one of many 
aspects of the Black experience. 
Lamar sweats blood through 
his verses, alternating between 
proud and self-hating as he spits 
lyrics so deep that even Michael 
Chabon could only scratch the 
surface when he annotated them 
for Genius.

Lamar fans who got angry and 

disappointed every time dozens 
of drunk people sung along to 
“Swimming Pools” at house par-
ties, have no fear: While To Pimp 
a Butterfly is far too dense and 
layered for every part of Lamar’s 
message to be immediately and 
completely understood, there’s 
no way that any of these tracks 
will be mistaken for commercial 
turn-up party anthems. Lamar 
unequivocally eschews anything 
that would even remotely sound 
like a Mike Will Made It or DJ 
Mustard joint, even messing 
with previous single “i” enough 
that none of these songs will be 
played on the radio. Instead, he 
brings in artists like Thundercat 
and Terrace Martin, who ground 
the disorienting trippiness of 
songs like “Wesley’s Theory” 
and “King Kunta” with strong 
bass, jazz instruments and afro-
centric beats. The only credited 
A-list cameo comes from Snoop 
Dogg on “Institutionalized,” but 
even he is raspy, nearly unrec-
ognizable and gone in a flash of 
smoke. In fact, there’s not even a 
Black Hippy member to be found 
— a very noticeable omission that 
doesn’t bode well for the future 
of rap’s best collective. The most 
non-Lamar bars actually go to 
the little-known Rapsody, who 
delivers a verse of pride and love 
on “Complexion.”

Lamar’s music touches on sub-

jects including racial identity, the 
plight of inmates, Black beauty, 
the trials of fame, gang violence, 
police brutality, personal depres-
sion, the need for love and unity 
among all races and many more. 
Lamar spends To Pimp a Butter-
fly’s 80 minutes sharing almost 
all of his thoughts, and what he 
has to say is fascinating, a little 
schizophrenic 
and 
scattered, 

and incredibly smart. The com-
bination of the sheer power of 
Lamar’s rapping with the hyp-
notic jazz fusion production 
makes it impossible to tear your-
self away from the record and 
commands an endless number 
of listens. Lamar’s talent makes 
it feel like you’re pulled entirely 
into his own separate world, but 
everything his says has relevance 
in our own.

The most perfect, beautiful 

moment on To Pimp a Butterfly 
comes on “i.” After the confusion, 
anger and heavy, heavy darkness 
of the first 14 tracks, we hear the 
familiar voice of the same pastor 
who began this track when it was 
released six months ago. Except 
on that old release, the pastor 
said “He’s not a rapper; he’s a 
writer!” On this proper album 
track, he introduces Lamar as 
“the number-one rapper in the 
world.” It’s hard to understate 
exactly how important that dif-
ference is. For a while, it seemed 
like Kendrick Lamar was maybe 
too good for hip hop, preferring 
to be talked of in the company of 
dead white guys instead of 2Pac, 
Nas or Kanye. But that change, 
coupled with the faux-live set-
ting that places Lamar right in 

the heart of his neighborhood 
and disarms any accusations of 
selling out for radio play, con-
firms the emergence of Lamar’s 
true inner self, the Lamar we’ve 
been waiting the whole record 
to hear. “i” ’s catharsis of self-
acceptance, of putting the gun 
down and embracing love, cre-
ates a truly glorious moment.

However, as the song goes on, 

Lamar’s audience doesn’t nec-
essarily accept his message of 
love with open ears, and Lamar 
doesn’t exactly take their mixed 
reaction kindly. The unified 
clarity of the album doesn’t last 
long. An argument breaks out 
between fans, and Lamar stops 
the music, admonishing his 
crowd to “save that shit for the 
streets” and proceeding to deliv-
er an a capella lecture/verse on 
the word “Negus.” On To Pimp a 
Butterfly we hear a certain kind 
of militancy in Kendrick Lamar 
— not militancy in the tradition-
al Black Panther sense, but an 
indestructible conviction in his 
message that refuses to allow 
dissent.

12 years ago, Jay-Z released 

his “final” album, titled The 
Black Album. If Hov hadn’t taken 
that name, it would’ve been an 
appropriate descriptor for To 
Pimp a Butterfly, a release that 
overflows with knowledge of 
Black history, attempts to cover 
as many parts of the Black 
American experience as it can 
and name-checks everyone from 
Moses to the Black Panthers to 
Malcolm X, MLK, Nelson Man-
dela and 2Pac. Nowhere is this 
more apparent than the album’s 
closer, “Mortal Man.” 12 min-
utes long and dedicated to Nel-
son Mandela, “Mortal Man” ’s 
verses deal with Lamar’s fear 
of being abandoned by his fans. 
“When the shit hit the fan, is you 
still a fan?” he asks. The actions-
speak-louder-than-words mes-
sage and the line “How many 
leaders you said you needed then 
left ’em for dead?” ring true, but 
Lamar might be a little too para-
noid about the public’s potential 
betrayal. Of Michael Jackson, he 
says, “That nigga gave us Billie 
Jean, you say he touched those 
kids?” Hm.

“Mortal Man” ’s lengthy outro 

that closes To Pimp a Butterfly is 
a conversation between Lamar 
and 2Pac, who’s recreated from 
old interview tapes. They dis-
cuss the future of Lamar’s gen-
eration, and Lamar explains a 
metaphor that “a good friend” 
wrote describing Lamar’s world. 
In the metaphor, which gives the 
album its title, there are enlight-
ened “butterflies” and bitter 
“caterpillars” who are trapped 
in cocoons of their own envi-
ronments and try to “pimp” the 
butterflies. The mission of the 
butterfly, Kendrick says, is to 
shed light on the caterpillars in 
order to end the “eternal strug-
gle.” “What’s your perspective 
on that?” Lamar asks 2Pac. Pac 
doesn’t answer, and thus ends 
To Pimp a Butterfly. After taking 
in the whole album, you may be 
ready to follow Lamar to the ends 
of the earth, or you may dismiss 
him as an overdramatic egotist, 
but one thing is indisputable: To 
Pimp a Butterfly is mandatory lis-
tening from a rapper whose trials, 
tribulations and immeasurable 
ambition have helped create a 
once-in-a-lifetime record, one 
whose words, if their creator 
achieves his goal, will inspire and 
endure for generations.

ALBUM REVIEW

A

To Pimp a 
Butterfly

Kendrick 
Lamar

Top Dawg

TOP DAWG

Does gravity exist for Kendrick Lamar? Read on to find out!

‘Cinderella’ dazzles

By BENJAMIN ROSENSTOCK

Daily Arts Writer

It’s hard to justify a live-action 

remake of an animated movie 
like 1950’s “Cinderella” — a movie 
that 
doesn’t 

particularly 
need 
to 
be 

retold despite 
its 
abundant 

number 
of 

adaptations. 
To remake a 
film like “Cin-
derella,” 
one 

would expect 
the 
filmmak-

ers 
to 
take 

a 
different 

approach, perhaps shifting the 
viewpoint to that of Anastasia, 
one of the evil stepsisters, or 
presenting the story in a histori-
cal setting with a feminist per-
spective, as 1998’s “Ever After” 
did. Ironically, though, 2015’s 
“Cinderella” succeeds so well 
precisely for the opposite reason. 
Instead of nixing the fantastical 
elements, the fantasy is piled on, 
and the film is a vivid and color-
ful live-action remake instead of 
a dark or gritty interpretation.

Ella (Lily James, “Downton 

Abbey”) finds herself in the care 
of a wicked stepmother (Cate 
Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”) and 
two cruel stepsisters, Anastasia 
and Drizella (Holliday Grainger, 
“The 
Borgias” 
and 
Sophia 

McShera, “Galavant,” respec-
tively) after both of her parents 
pass away. Here’s where the story 
changes a little: Rather than 
meeting Prince Charming for the 
first time at his lavish ball, Ella 
meets him during an afternoon 

of horseback riding in the forest, 
and he misleadingly introduces 
himself as Kit (Richard Madden, 
“Game of Thrones”), an appren-
tice who works at the castle.

This change benefits the logic 

of the story, for the most part. 
When Kit goes home and finally 
does throw the ball, he opens 
it to all eligible maidens for the 
purpose of finding Ella. The film 
rarely attempts to inject femi-
nism into a story that naturally 
denies its female protagonist her 
agency, but putting Ella and Kit 
on more equal footing aids the 
storytelling and makes their love 
more credible. With Kenneth 
Branagh’s (“Jack Ryan: Shadow 
Recruit”) direction, the camera 
makes circular pans around Ella 
and Kit, drawing a natural paral-
lel between their horses circling 
around each other as they meet 
in the forest and their later diz-
zying dance scene. There’s noth-
ing complex, exactly, about their 
love, but there rarely is in a fairy 
tale.

The film puts other slight spins 

on the original. In the hands of a 
gloriously unlikable Blanchett, 
Lady Tremaine is both enter-
taining and a little more tragic 
than the 1950 stepmother; Chris 
Weitz’s (“The Golden Compass”) 
script insinuates that Tremaine’s 
resentment for Ella is born out of 
grief and a deep-seated jealousy 
of Ella’s late mother, whose place 
Lady Tremaine will never be able 
to fill. When a man arrives to tell 
the family of Ella’s father’s death, 
he says to Ella, “He spoke only of 
you and your mother.” The pain 
on Lady Tremaine’s face in that 
one shot signals the beginning of 
the disdain Ella will face in her 

stepmother’s servitude.

The film is also occasionally 

quite funny, especially when 
Helena Bonham Carter (“Les 
Misérables”) appears as the Fairy 
Godmother who revitalizes the 
film with a self-aware spin on the 
character, turning a passing liz-
ard and goose into the footman 
and coachman of Ella’s pumpkin 
carriage. The coachman, with a 
nose resembling a goose’s beak, 
says, “I can’t drive; I’m a goose,” 
and though it’s silly, the coach-
man’s perplexed delivery earns 
laughs.

The willingness to indulge 

the fantastical aspects of Cin-
derella’s story is also its great-
est flaw. The film’s existence in 
the first place is a little hard to 
justify, since it stays so close to 
the 1950 version, hardly giving 
Ella any complexity beyond the 
obvious emotions: sadness at 
her parents’ passing and happi-
ness when she’s with the prince. 
When the film does try to go 
more complex, elaborating on 
Ella’s embarrassment at her 
lack of noble standing, it falters 
a little, especially because this 
film’s Prince Charming never 
cares even slightly about wheth-
er or not the love of his life is a 
princess. The main conflict feels 
forced as a result.

Thankfully, though, the pres-

ervation of the original film’s 
sense of adventure overrides any 
major flaw “Cinderella” might 
have. Always fun and featuring 
a dazzling array of bright colors 
and costumes, the movie might 
not deliver a daring new take on 
the original story, but its tradi-
tional nature is what makes the 
film so appealing.

B+

Cinderella

Rave & 
Quality 16

Walt Disney 

Studio Motion 

Pictures

FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW
‘Red Army’ elevates 
sports documentary

By CATHERINE SULPIZIO

Senior Arts Editor

Early on in “The Red Army,” 

Viacheslav 
Fetisov, 
the 
leg-

endary defenseman of the Red 
Army 
ice 

hockey 
club 

and 
star 
of 

the documen-
tary, 
refuses 

to 
cooperate 

with 
Gabe 

Polsky 
(“The 

Motel 
Life”), 

the documen-
tarian. 
Wry 

smile on his 
lips, he checks his phone, mak-
ing a crack about American 
work ethic, as Polsky — unable 
to restrain himself — pelts him 
with questions. The comedic 
dance between director and star 
is just one facet of humor in “The 
Red Army,” Polsky’s film about 
the iconic Russian hockey team 
and its Soviet-era backdrop. It’s 
funnier than you would expect: 
kids sing propaganda songs, on-
screen lyrics marked by a bounc-
ing hammer-and-sickle, Fetisov 
slings jabs at Polsky, a dictatorial 
coach’s habit of hitting his play-
ers draws audience laughs. Yet 
for its levity and flashy graph-
ics, “The Red Army” still wields 
a hefty thematic load as it 
explores the politics that played 
out on ice, as well as the aesthet-
ics of an aggressive, beautiful 
sport. 

Cultural 
critic 
Roland 

Barthes wrote in “The World 
of Wrestling” that in the U.S., 
“wrestling represents a kind of 
mythological combat between 
Good and Evil … the ‘bad wres-
tler’ always presumed to be a 
Red.” This maxim latches eas-
ily onto ice hockey, especially 
during the monumental 1980 
Winter Olympics when Ameri-
can “underdogs” (as if the U.S. 
could ever be the humble long 
shot) defeated the Soviet Union 
in Lake Placid, New York. Amid 
Russia’s 
recent 
invasion 
of 

Afghanistan and plunged deep 
in the Cold War, both media and 
President Jimmy Carter took 
every advantage to situate the 
game within ideological signifi-
cance as athletes were blown 

into symbolic manifestations of 
Communism versus Capitalism. 
For the U.S., this grand narra-
tive spawned “Miracles on Ice,” 
but for the Russians, it was a 
frustrating — yet small — battle 
lost. 

Up until 1972, the beloved 

coach Anatoli Tarasov led the 
team, which is where “Red 
Army” elevates a sports docu-
mentary into a sophisticated 
look at the art underlying the 
game. Tarasov’s brand of coach-
ing drew inspiration from mae-
stros of ballet and chess alike 
to create the complex plays 
that defined the team’s tech-
nical prowess. The film deftly 
characterizes what makes Rus-
sian hockey so distinct from its 
clunky rivals’ type of play — that 
is, the team’s point of intersec-
tion between individual talent 
and collaborative, spontaneous 
creativity. At times it appears 
like the team shares one hyper-
active brain, especially as they 
weave labyrinthine and grace-
ful passes up and down the rink, 
gliding as quickly as synapses 
firing off, leaving opponents stu-
pefied.

The test point for a documenta-

ry is its ability to draw the viewer 
into its niche universe, to assimi-
late them into its rhythms of local 
culture. “Red Army” achieves this 
and more, by not only exploring the 
close-knit dynamics of the team, 
but by tracking the interposition of 
world politics on a group of talent-
ed players who just want to, well, 
play hockey. After the spectacular 
failure of the Olympics that played 
out on the global media stage, 
the Soviet Union immediately 
regrouped their patriotic sport par 
example by radically restructur-
ing: a swath of longstanding mem-

bers are out, and Viktor Tikhonov, 
Tarasov’s 
successor, 
doubles 

down. Intractably embedded in 
politics, the Red Army Team was 
actually an official part of the Sovi-
et Army during the era and Tik-
honov plays the general with the 
full brunt of his government-sanc-
tioned authority. Training length-
ens and intensifies, and the idyllic 
relations between the team start 
to crumble. “Red Army” draws its 
narrative work from interviews 
with the core team members who 
don’t hold back in their criticism of 
Tikhonov, a figure who encapsu-
lates the worst impulses of his gov-
ernment. Isolated for 11 months 
of the year and treated with little 
compassion (a teammate recalls 
not being allowed to visit his dying 
father) the team culls viewer sym-
pathy easily. Intriguingly though, 
the film doesn’t shy away from the 
logistical success of Tikhonov’s 
tactics — a slew of wins follow. 
While never becoming an allegory, 
“Red Army” elegantly aligns these 
tailing years of the Soviet Union 
with the team’s own declining 
morale, as team members ulti-
mately defect to U.S. teams with 
much resistance from their own 
government.

Through its final leg, “Red 

Army” explores questions of 
national identity. Far from being 
opponents of Russia, the players 
retain a complicated solidarity 
with not just their country, but 
with the state they were shaped 
by. Even as 1991’s failed coup 
brings a wave of economic free-
dom, this post-Union period is 
marked by lawlessness and cor-
ruption, which Fetisov and his 
teammates 
mourn. 
Similarly, 

the team’s various moves to the 
U.S. are portrayed with vex, but 
“Red Army” still finds a quietly 
triumphant ending, as five mem-
bers reunite in Detroit’s own Red 
Wings team, bringing their elabo-
rate style of hockey to Ameri-
can ice. For the sheer breadth of 
thematic ground “Red Army” 
moves through, its run time of 
76 minutes could have felt slight. 
Yet just as its subject springs to 
life through feats of astonish-
ing choreography, “Red Army,” 
too, displays remarkable talent in 
spinning its far-flung narrative 
threads together.

A

Red Army

State Theater

Sony Pictures 

Classics

The aesthetics 
of an aggressive,
 beautiful sport 

on ice.

