Red Mosquito

This whole album is good but I think "Yah" might be my favorite track. I just love the overall feel of that song.

I like how many releases there are nowadays that seamlessly intertwine rap with R&B -- Kendrick's albums, Chance's last mixtape, "Life of Pablo," "Anti," etc. Thinking back on the earliest definitions of both genres, they were always distant cultural cousins but pretty disparate musical ideas. By the '90's they'd become opposite ends of the "urban music" spectrum, with a lot of cross-population -- rappers popping up on Mariah Carey remixes, Mary J. Blige providing choruses for 80% of rap singles, etc. But now there is this effortless oscillation back and forth between the two styles that is just pure ear candy to me.

DNA is a monster of a track. I actually thought it was separate songs when I had it playing in the background. Those tempo changes are so much fun.

Current favorites: ELEMENT, FEEL, PRIDE, HUMBLE, XXX.

"PRIDE." sounds so much like Mac DeMarco.

FYI Kendrick is selling autographed copies of DAMN. on his website for crazy cheap. I just ordered an autographed double red vinyl and a T-shirt for $50 shipped.

Holy shit

Ordered. That's awesome.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:FYI Kendrick is selling autographed copies of DAMN. on his website for crazy cheap. I just ordered an autographed double red vinyl and a T-shirt for $50 shipped.

I was just coming here to post this too. I got the same + a CD cause I'm old.

I did this for Butterfly and Untitled. Good deals. Heads up: his signature is just a squiggle

bodysnatcher wrote:I did this for Butterfly and Untitled. Good deals. Heads up: his signature is just a squiggle

So like a standard celebrity signed item after 200 autographs in a day

I can live with that. At least it'll likely be legit.

FEAR.

FEAR. is still one of the few tracks I don't love.

I love how the beat sounds like a heartbeat when he's spilling his guts.

Kaius wrote:I love how the beat sounds like a heartbeat when he's spilling his guts.

Spoiler: show

Ye did it better

It's funny to me to see some people say this is his big leap forward when TPAB was (to me) obviously a more ambitious piece of work. The "everyday rap listener" perception of this album has generally been that it's probably the easiest to listen to of any of his albums (along with GKMC). It definitely has the best pure rap beats of anything he's done, and it's a great album to bang in the car.

Honestly I think he wanted to show people that he's not gonna fade into some weird shit like Andre 3000 and can still bring the hammer when needed. When he's going in on DNA and the bass line drops even lower and you know he's about to take it up to an 11...fuck me is that just excellent shit right there. He's a genius, straight up.