As a Christian, he painfully admits the dangerous amount of pride he has in himself. He calls out his failures as someone in a position of power to achieve substantial change in society. In “PRIDE.” Lamar talks about himself caught in a struggle between his own pride and his faith. Lamar simply begins by rapping about his fame and fortune so he can brutally tear himself down later in the album to reveal his true successes. Lamar certainly has earned the right to celebrate his success, and “ELEMENT.” is how he acknowledges his current achievements and previous struggles.īut “DAMN.” is not simply a braggadocios proclamation of one man’s victory.
“I don’t do it for the ‘Gram, I do it for Compton / I’m willin’ to die for this s––,” he raps and details the level of dedication he has put toward his work. “ELEMENT.” continues Lamar’s self-praise, detailing the sacrifices he made in his own life to attain his fame.
The second half of the song features a beat switch accompanied by a vicious response to a clip of Fox News host Geraldo Rivera claiming “hip hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years.” Lamar continues his longstanding fight against racial prejudice by putting Rivera’s ignorance in the spotlight, but also stands up for himself by refusing to let such criticism taint his work. “I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA / I got hustle though, ambition, flow, inside my DNA,” he raps in the first verse. On top of a bouncing beat that dominates the track, Lamar flaunts his own pride in his race, accomplishments and ability. He begins his introspection in “DNA.,” a celebration of his own career. His fictionalized death in the song serves as a tool for the rapper to look at his own life from an external perspective and examine his successes and failures through the rest of the album. “BLOOD.” opens the album with Lamar describing a scenario where he is shot dead on the street. Where “To Pimp a Butterfly” sought to look outward by commenting on racial prejudice and celebrating black culture, “DAMN.” looks inward and presents a conflicted look at the inner mind of Kendrick Lamar. His compilation album of B-sides, “untitled unmastered.,” released in 2016 between the two projects, showed that even his throwaway songs are better than most others’ hits.Īfter the incredible commercial and critical response to his recent albums, Lamar was tasked with the daunting role of having to fill his own large shoes with the release of “DAMN.” But he does so extremely well by introducing and fully exploring a raw and vulnerable side to himself. Lamar has proven that his creativity greatly trumps that of any of his competitors. “DAMN.,” Lamar’s fourth studio album, is the answer to the question of how the Compton rapper could possibly follow up one of the most innovative rap albums of all time, “To Pimp a Butterfly.” It was a truly Good Friday for fans of hip hop with the release of Kendrick Lamar’s long-awaited album.
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