The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, April 18, 2017 — 5

INTERSCOPE RECORDS

Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN.” came out last Friday
Cyclical black conscious is 
embodied on LP ‘DAMN.’

Although 
scholars 
contest 

the dates, Pablo Picasso’s Blue 
Period is set between 1901 and 
1904. Reeling from a close friend’s 
suicide, Picasso descended into a 
deep depression, blue tones soon 
coming to dominate his canvases. 
As bright hues darkened, so too 
did subject matter, his artwork 
devolving into bleak narratives of 
prostitutes, beggars and drunks. 
Struggling through poverty as 
consequence, this period marks 
his first shift away from classicism 
into what ultimately solidified into 
Cubism.

DAMN. 
opens 
with 
an 

arrangement of mellow strings 
reminiscent of Hans Zimmer. 
Kendrick’s tone is gentle, reserved, 
tranquil. Reminiscing, he recalls 
a woman – a blind woman – 
who is frustrated because she’s 
dropped 
something 
precious. 

Lady Justice has misplaced her 
balance scales. In prototypical 
hyperconscious fashion, Lamar 
alludes to the eroding integrity of 
American political life. Watching 
Lady Liberty struggle, Kendrick 
approaches, kindly offering to 
help. He points out that she’s lost 
something. She responds, “Oh, yes. 
You have lost something. You’ve 
lost… your life.”

Lamar is shot. Is it wickedness?
Spiraling out of a Fox News 

segment, 
the 
album 
abruptly 

transitions into the most colossal 
braggadocio banger of Lamar’s 
career: “I got, I got, I got, I got / 
Loyalty, I got royalty, inside my 
DNA / Cocaine quarter piece, got 
war and peace, inside my DNA 
/ I got power, poison, pain and 
joy, inside my DNA / I got hustle 
though, ambition, flow, inside my 
DNA.” In trademark Mike WiLL 
Made-It fashion, a dark, groaning 
baseline oozes against a guitar 
modulated down into the twang 
of a holy sitar. Towards the back 
half of “DNA.,” a vocal proclaiming 
“gimme some ganja” is abrasively 
mixed into the track. Alongside 
Kendrick’s ruthless rhythm, the 
song 
masterfully 
reflects 
our 

modern, oversaturated, GIMME-
GIMME-GIMME-GIMME-
GIMME-GIMME-post-internet 
multiracial consciousness.

From Section.80 through to 

last year’s untitled unmastered., 
Kendrick has been continually 
fusing West Coast gangsta with 
jazz, funk, soul and spoken word, 
bridging the avant-garde with 
the accessible. It’s easy to forget 
that the man who did “Backseat 
Freestyle” is the same one who did 
“i.”

What marks DAMN. as an 

inflection 
point 
in 
Kendrick 

Lamar’s evolution is its stripped-
down, 
Spartan 
sound; 
it’s 

surprising that Rick Rubin doesn’t 
have 
any 
production 
credits. 

Although there is a curious 
departure into dance & electronic 
in “LOYALTY.,” “LOVE.” and 
through the synths of “GOD.,” the 
album is largely centered around 
inflected soul and hard-hitting, 
classical hip hop. It’s telling 
that 
jazz-influenced, 
frequent 

collaborator Thundercat is only 
credited on a single bassline.

Lamar’s interests have pivoted, 

his focus tightened. In Jobsian 
fashion, the album’s minimal 
is its most mosaic. Between 
the layers of sonic complexity, 
BADBADNOTGOOD-assisted 
“LUST.” 
is 
a 
standout. 
The 

track opens with a waterlogged 
psychedelic riff: a tune reminiscent 
of 
Hendrix’s 
nasal 
solos 
on 

Electric 
Ladyland. 
A 
cyclical 

filter sweep is tucked between 
guitar and the vocals, its closest 
cousin the spellbinding whoosh 
of Radiohead’s “Like Spinning 

Plates.” Make no mistake, this 
is a rap track: one with bars 
grafted 
between 
Atlanta-trap-

deriven-triplicate-Hi-Hats. 
While Kendrick has long been 
one to explore unconventional 
percussion (See: “Momma”), here 
we see the furthest he’s ever delved 
into the experimental left-field. 
For the first half of the track, kicks 
and snares are noticeably absent. 
When they do appear, they show 
up for one, two, three beats and 
then disappear for another four, 
five, seven. The sound resembles 
footwork’s surgical DNA splicing 
much more than traditional snare-
driven hip hop. At very few points 
of the track are all elements in play, 
either: it’s usually just one or two 
sounds. “LUST.” does not feature 
Kendrick’s 
most 
complicated 

drumkit 
nor 
his 

most 
dynamic 

vocals. Rather, the 
song’s intrigue is in 
its sheer precision, 
the 
calculated 

technicality through 
which 
its 
sounds 

morph.

“DUCKWORTH.” 
is 
some 

of Kendrick’s most soul-heavy 
work to date. Layered samples 
compete for with his rhymes 
for space, similar to his verse on 
“No More Parties in LA,” track 
17 of Kanye’s most recent effort, 
The Life of Pablo. Yet, the album’s 
slowed-down, soulful minimalism 
isn’t without its contrast. In fact, 
DAMN. is further proof that no 
rapper alive has the aesthetic 
versatility of Lamar. On “XXX.,” 
Lamar ventures into the industrial, 
rapping over police sirens mixed 
down to sound exactly like they 
were lifted from “Need for Speed: 
Most Wanted.” On “FEAR.,” the 
bridge is looped backwards, and 
it sounds as if he’s been divinely 
possessed by the Holy Spirit, 
prophesying in ancient tongue.

Rising from the bleak depths 

of depression, Picasso’s entered 
a new era near the end of 1904: 
The Rose Period. Although most 
of 
posthumous-Picasso-interest 

is centered on the Blue Period, 
it was only in the Rose period 
that the technical foundations of 
Picasso’s later abstraction would 
begin to crystallize. Themes of 
solitude and despair evolved into 
pink and orange compositions that 
articulated cheer and question.

Kendrick Lamar is an artist 

first and rapper second. Although 
his product is packaged as ‘music,’ 
his medium is language, and his 
work strives to extend beyond 
the bounds of lyrical form. His 
rap stretches into poetry and 
spoken word, and his albums are 
cinematic. The cover of good kid, 
m.A.A.d city has the words “A 
Short Film by Kendrick Lamar’” 
scribbled onto it. Beyond his bridge 
between word and film, Kendrick 
utilizes artwork to exhibit content 
and give flesh to aesthetic. Greens, 
blues, browns, greys and blacks 
dominate all his past covers. While 
the straight grey of 2015’s To 
Pimp a Butterfly reflects its blunt, 
detached, sociopolitical truth, the 
fusion of color in his other work 
reflects an earthly calmness: a 
calmness under which deep, nested 
tensions brew.

DAMN. is red — devilishly 

so. Donning a plain-white tee, 
Kendrick stares at the camera, 
eyeballs lowered, his expression 
one of possession, one in need of 
exorcism. “In my DNA / In my 
DNA / In my DNA.” Rhythmic 
repetition stretches across the 
LP. “Ain’t nobody praying for me 
/ Ain’t nobody praying for me / 
Ain’t nobody praying for me.” 
The litany is cathartic, dogmatic, 
Gregorian. “I’ll probably die / I’ll 
probably die / I’ll probably die.” 
Although Lamar is oft mistaken 
for a preachy, middle school 
substitute teacher, on DAMN., his 

themes and his lyrics are tightly 
wound, largely internal. Track by 
track, he digs deeper into his own 
black consciousness, distilling the 
conflicting beliefs, influences, and 
obligations into abstract values 
— “PRIDE.,” “LUST.,” “LOVE.,” 
“FEAR.” — never forgetting his 
fleshly physicality — “BLOOD.,” 
“DNA.,” “ELEMENT.” In effect, 
DAMN. is more akin to Lamarian-
stream-of-consciousness 
than 

prototypical “bars.”

Between 
1906 
and 
1907, 

Picasso became spellbound by 
African sculpture and artifact, 
tugged between the refinement 
of classicism and the open bounds 
of 
abstraction. 
Although 
his 

work was not yet full fledged 
cubist, the elements of structural 
decomposition 
and 
reassembly 

intensified. 
Proportions 
exaggerated, 
subject 
form 

morphed; 
the 

palette 
of 
his 

past 
periods 

harmonized. 
Scholars refer to 

this as the Negro Period.

On “Mortal Man,” 2Pac warns, 

“I think that niggas is tired of 
grabbin’ shit out of the stores and 
next time it’s a riot there’s gonna 
be bloodshed, for real. I don’t think 
America know that.”

DAMN. opens with “BLOOD.”
Although we live in one of the 

most animated periods of political 
activism 
in 
recent 
memory, 

Kendrick still looks out and sees 
stagnancy. On “FEEL.” Kendrick 
rhymes “I feel like this gotta be 
the feelin’ ‘Pac was [having] / The 
feelin’ of an apocalypse happenin’ / 
But nothin’ is awkward, the feeling 
won’t prosper / The feelin’ is toxic, 
I feel like I’m boxin’ demons, 
monsters, false prophets, schemin’ 
sponsors, 
industry 
promises, 

niggas, bitches, honkies, crackers, 
Compton, Church, religion, token 
black and bondage.”

Lamar is suffocated by what’s 

around him. He is trapped, lost, 
unsure of what more he can do, 
unsure of what more he can change. 
He’s said what needed to be said; 
he’s done what needed to be done. 
Yet, he stills looks out and sees the 
same injustice that inspired him to 
compose To Pimp a Butterfly.

On DAMN., Kendrick comes to 

terms with the fact that he is just 
one rapper, one man, one soul. It 
takes more than one to solve our 
entrenched social tensions, more 
than one to achieve universal 
equality. Lamar has known that 
— all along, he has. Yet, through 
the album’s nested anguish, he 
continues to grapple with his role 
as the face of the ever-evolving 
Black Consciousness. To Pimp 
a Butterfly made its importance 
sufficiently clear, DAMN. marks its 
furthest examination, its highest 
magnification.

His deepest critique of our mass 

social paralysis is on “FEAR.” 
Kendrick’s cousin — Carl — opens 
the track. A devoted Christian, he 
is convicted to the belief that God 
is punishing his family — alleged 
true Israelites — for disobedience. 
Lamar spends the majority of the 
track reflecting on his own fears: 
reminiscing of a home life where 
the threat of domestic abuse 
looms large, recalling the fear of 
dying as a young teen in Compton, 
acknowledging his present worries 
over losing his newfound wealth 
and success. Lamar makes it clear 
that even after he’s left home, even 
after he’s sold his records, even 
after he’s ‘made it,’ he’s still driven 
by fear — to the point that he would 
even smoke it.

DAMN. concludes with a tale 

of a seasoned gangbanger and an 
innocent Kentucky Fried Chicken 
employee. The narrative’s moral: 
free chicken and extra biscuits. 
The simplest of gestures can 

AARURAN CHANDRESEKHAR

Daily Arts Writer

generate 
the 
most 
significant 

change. He concludes: “Whoever 
thought the greatest rapper would 
be from coincidence? Because if 
Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg 
could be servin’ for life, while I 
grew up without a father and die 
in a gunfight.” Just as we’re given 
a penetrating glimpse into one of 
Kendrick’s deepest held truths, 
the final consonant ‘t’ blends into a 
rewind, one that zips back through 
the album, back to Lamar’s first line: 
“So I was taking a walk the other 
day.”

The 
entirety 
of 
DAMN. 

compresses into a snapshot: a single 
snapshot beseeching relisten. So 
we push play, again. Just like that, 
Kendrick is shot, again. We dive into 
his personal struggle, again. And 
just like last the last listen, the album 
ends with another restoration to 
origin. It’s a manifestation of the 
cyclical course of unjust African 
American death. Few still talk 
about Trayvon; few still talk about 
Michael. But in the moment, we 
obsess over the details, we delve into 
the history, we join struggle. We say, 
“this death, this murder, this will 
be one that will change things.” 
But then fear overtakes us. And we 
forget. And the cycle continues.

DAMN

Kendrick Lamar

Interscope 

Records

NETFLIX

Still from new series “13 Reasons Why”
‘13 Reasons Why’ drama 
explores teenage suicide

Includes spoilers and mentions 

of suicide and sexual violence 
including rape. 

In a pretty spot-on adaptation 

of the YA bestseller “Thirteen 
Reasons Why,” the new Netflix 
series follows Clay Jensen as 
he receives a box of cassette 
tapes left on his doorstep and, 
upon pushing play, is greeted 
by the voice of Hannah Baker: 
a classmate, coworker, friend, 
crush and, recently, victim of 
suicide. For the next 13 episodes, 
she explains — “live and in 
stereo” — why she is about to kill 
herself, and we listen.

It’s hard to know where to 

begin with this series, which 
has sparked a lot of debate over 
how this story should have 
been told, or if it should have 
been produced in this medium 
at all. From a purely stylistic 
standpoint, there are times 
when it feels manipulative and 
overly drawn out. Hannah’s 
instructions for the tapes are 
simple: listen to all of them, 
then pass them on to the person 
whose tape is after yours. 
Instead of listening to all the 
tapes at once, Clay takes breaks 
after each one and talks to the 
other students who have heard 
them, 
demanding 
answers, 

apologies or retribution — which 
doesn’t quite make sense, as his 
questions could be answered if 
he just finished listening to the 
tapes the way everyone tells 
him to. This gimmick allows the 
show to last for 13 episodes, and 
leads to Clay seeming more self-
righteous than he does in the 
book. On top of that, there are 
several conversations between 
some of the other kids about 
how they’re going to deal with 
the possibility of the whole 
school learning about Hannah’s 
tapes that feel almost sickening 
in their self-interest, almost to 
the point of feeling unreal. 

But the further into the 

season you get, the more these 
aspects seem to somehow fade 
into the background. The show 
allows us to visualize things that 
the book can’t, like how it feels 
to see the parents of the dead 
girl you bullied and know they 
have no idea about the role you 
played in her life, or how fake it 
can seem to have posters about 
suicide prevention plastered on 
the walls of a high 
school brimming 
with 
pain 
and 

oblivion.

Is “13 Reasons 

Why” raw and 
real, 
or 
is 
it 

romanticized? 
This 
seems 
to 

be the main determinant for 
whether or not this show is 
worth watching, but I don’t 
think there’s a simple answer. 
Some have voiced criticism 
that 
because 
Hannah 
gets 

to tell us her story, the show 
romanticizes suicide; some are 
worried about copycat suicides 
occurring among youth who 
watch the show. Others feel 
that it’s misleading to tell a 
story about suicide without ever 
really engaging with the role 
that mental health plays in the 
large majority of cases. Some 
feel that certain scenes are 
gratuitously graphic, especially 
the rape scenes and, of course, 
Hannah’s suicide itself.

Personally, I haven’t figured 

out what I think or feel about 
this show. When I read the 
book in high school, I felt like 
it got a lot right about how it 
feels to be in Hannah’s or Clay’s 
position, and showed just how 
shitty high school and high 
schoolers can be. It conveyed 
just how disconnected adults 
can be from the lives of their 
children or students and, just as 
importantly, how dangerous it is 
to keep subtly blaming victims 
of sexual assault for their own 
assaults. It’s weird to watch the 
show now, being in that strange 
place between adolescence and 

adulthood; I fully understand 
the concern surrounding it.

But I also think it’s a story 

worth telling. No, the show does 
not discuss whether Hannah 
has issues with her mental 
health, but a lot of the criticism 
I’ve seen of this show based 
on that aspect seems to gloss 
over how deeply painful and 
isolating Hannah’s experience 
of being bullied was. Some 

articles 
don’t 

even 
mention 

the fact that she 
was 
raped 
— 

something I find 
incredibly, deeply 
disturbing.

Something 

makes me want 

to defend this show, despite 
its faults, but I’m not sure 
why, and I’m not sure to what 
length or if I’m right to feel 
that way. Maybe it’s all of the 
comments I’ve read under 
think pieces about it from 
parents who are watching it 
with their kids and using it as a 
jumping off point to talk about 
bullying, 
sexual 
violence 

and male entitlement to the 
bodies of girls and women 
and suicide. Maybe it’s the 
fact that it represents at least 
soame kind of exposure to 
stories that so often get buried 
with their owners. Maybe it’s 
the fact that by talking about 
what this show does wrong, 
we can get closer to talking 
about how we — as friends, 
as classmates, as parents, as 
school 
administrators 
and 

counselors — can do better. 
Because like it or not, it 
does nothing to talk about 
how artistic portrayals of 
suicide are incorrect without 
discussing the problems of 
how we talk about bullying, 
sexual violence and mental 
health 
in 
our 
schools. 

Perhaps one of the actual 
most romanticized elements 
of Hannah’s story is that she 
points to 13 specific reasons. If 
only it were actually that simple. 

New Netflix Original series explores repercussions of bullying 

SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Book Review Editor

“13 Reasons 

Why”

Netflix

TV REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW

