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.