Lamar’s latest offerings worth a listen

By: Ben Boezinger

Recent days have seen a blockbuster set of new rap album releases. First, on Tuesday, March 1, 2 Chainz album “Collegrove” dropped. With personal favorites like “Gotta Lotta,” “MFN Right” and “Bounce,” that great album was overshadowed by the end of the week by West Coast king Kendrick Lamar’s surprise new album, which was supposedly at Lebron’s request.

The album dropped on March 4 at 11 p.m. and was instantly a whirlwind of conversation. I was personally confused as to why such a significant rapper in Lamar would drop an album at such an insignificant time.

Although the album was leaked onto the streaming service Spotify earlier in the day. This isn’t the first time Lamar has had a problem with a release. You might remember that his album “to Pimp a Butterfly” dropped eight days before its schedule release, causing a little feud between Interscope records and Lamar’s label Top Dawg Entertainment. Supposedly most of the songs have been played before, whether at concerts, or in two instances, on T.V.

The only reason that Lamar said the songs weren’t placed on his previous album was because of space and time issues. All the songs were performed or written before “to Pimp a Butterfly” was released. The songs are titled the number they are in chronological order on the album and the date they were written.

The beats to the songs are like all of K-Dot’s previous releases: jazzy. Most of the songs have a brass instrument along with the melody and beat. The beats take a slower quiver sound.

Without the lyrics, the songs are thought provoking enough. They somehow in a way represent what Lamar had to go through with growing up in Compton. “Untitled 02” talks about what he and fellow Compton-based rappers have spent their success on.

“Untitled 03” has a more upbeat tempo, and the melody isn’t as dark as it was on the previous track. The lyrics get more positive, very similar to “Untitled 06.” Both songs include a pleasing kickback from drums, which Lamar relies on more and more towards the end of the album.

Then, personally, my favorite song on the album is “Untitled 07” where he raps about how the rap game gets him higher than anything else in life, including life itself. Most of the song is a conversation between himself and his super ego.

After much waiting, the world has finally heard Lamar’s unreleased hits. The rapper’s “project” will go down as one of the most successful eight-track albums in the history and one of K-Dot’s many accolades from his rapping career.