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Classic Recordings: Kendrick Lamar-DAMN

Sixteen tracks from the album that won a Pulitzer Prize for Music — the first record outside classical or jazz ever to do so.

Damn (Kendrick Lamar album) - Wikipedia

Kendrick Lamar: DAMN. (2017)

DAMN. is the record where Kendrick Lamar stopped making sprawling conceptual statements and made something tighter, harder and considerably more unsettling. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, a decision that caused a great deal of argument and has aged extremely well.

The album's organising idea is a set of one-word titles — PRIDE., LUST., FEAR., GOD., LOVE. — that function as a moral inventory. Underneath sits a theological argument about whether the narrator's life is governed by divine judgment or by chance, which the album refuses to settle.

It is also constructed to be played in reverse. Lamar confirmed this: run the tracklist backwards and the story changes from a fall to a rise, and the opening and closing tracks connect either way.

What to listen for

"DUCKWORTH." is the track that makes the whole structure work — a true story about a chance encounter between his father and the man who would later run his record label, ending with the gunshot that loops back to the album's first track.

"FEAR." is the emotional centre and the best-written verse here: three sections covering three ages, each listing what he was afraid of.

"DNA." is the technical showcase, and the beat switch at its midpoint is one of the most-discussed thirty seconds in modern rap.

"HUMBLE." is the enormous single, built on a Mike WiLL Made-It piano figure that does almost nothing.

"XXX." with U2 is the most ambitious and most divisive, and "LOYALTY." with Rihanna is the most fun.

"PRIDE." and "FEEL." are where the production is most beautiful, and "The Heart Part 4" is the loose single that preceded the album.

J. Cole's "Neighbors" closes the playlist, which is a nice piece of programming given how long the two were framed as rivals.

Go deeper

good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012) is the narrative masterpiece and To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) the musical one — the latter recorded with Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Terrace Martin and Robert Glasper, all of whom appear elsewhere on this blog.

For the Top Dawg circle: SZA, Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q.

Try it backwards: the reverse sequence is not a fan theory but a stated part of the design, and it changes the album from a fall into a rise. The first and last tracks connect either way round, which means the record has two endings and refuses to say which is true — the same refusal the one-word titles are making about judgment and chance.

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