Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. is still earning praise and resonating with fans, but is the album really all that?
A quick scan of the Internet landscape reveals it’s very challenging to find a negative review on Kendrick’s album, which just hit platinum and is still at #1, weeks after its April 14 release date.
The achievement is a testimony to the hard work Kendrick put into his fourth album, but there are still a few critics who disagreed with the majority of glowing reviews heaped upon DAMN.
Aziz B. Yakub of the Harvard Crimson concluded Kendrick’s new album is a sucky attempt at satirizing the current landscape of hip-hop.
“It is nearly impossible to make satire the basis of an entire album. Most problematically, in order to do it, Lamar has to embody a musical style that he never sounds comfortable in.” – Aziz B. Yakub The Harvard Crimson
Aziz is referring to Kendrick’s deviation from the light, jazzy sounds of To Pimp A Butterfly, in favor of some of the production styles that mirrors some of today’s most popular musicians, including Drake, Migos, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.
According to Aziz, Kendrick’s crooning stinks and he’s not nearly as charismatic as the artists cited above.
“Those drops of genius are hidden under such a wealth of unpleasant and misguided musical decisions that it becomes a masochistic battle to appreciate any trace of lyrical brilliance,” Aziz snapped.
According to Aziz, Kendrick should have stayed in his lane on DAMN., instead of trying to scrutinize and then compete with the contemporary artists of the day.
