Unlike Kendrick Lamar’s previous album Good Kid, M.A.A.D.

Luckily for the audience, each song seamlessly blends together, making the jolt-worthy transition palatable. Even though nearly each track is 5 minutes long, there just doesn’t seem to be long enough to process it all before skipping ahead and making your mind whirl for another five minutes. To Pimp a Butterfly continues on through the album at this breakneck speed. Sure, rap is naturally built for fast moving word play, but this track takes it to a whole other dimension. Even though it is only a little over 2 minutes long, its cadence and speed feel like you’ve hit fast forward on your tape deck but you can still hear the words going by: “Matter fact it need interest/ Matter fact it’s nine inches/ Matter fact see out friendship based on business/Pension, more pension, you’re pinchin’, my consensus/ Been relentless…” All of those lyrics happened in eight seconds. The best example of this is the second track on the album, For Free? (Interlude). Rather than focusing on the bass, Lamar focuses on the tremble, making his songs pop with elasticity rather than be weighed down by an overdriving beat. Backing up a significant portion of To Pimp a Butterfly‘s tracks is a cacophonous mash up of freeform jazz and late 70’s funk.

On top of all the great rhymes are the great rhythms.

In his track How Much a Dollar Cost, Lamar is challenging our superficial viewpoints and to look into each others hearts: “I never understood someone beggin’ for goods/Askin’ for handouts, takin’ it if they could/…Starin’ at me for the longest until he finally asked/ Have you ever opened up Exodus 14?/A humble man is all that we ever need/Tell me how much a dollar cost.” There is no doubt about the conflict that he feels throughout the album of both “making it” and of being the hypocrisy he grew up to hate. Kendrick Lamar has brought the meaning back to American rap boisterous, political, charged rhymes that makes you do a double-take and reconsider your notions of right and wrong. To Pimp a Butterfly is more than worth it. Don’t just torrent it or listen to it on a loop on Spotify, buy it. Let me start off by saying this: buy this album.

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