Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly

[e_wind]

[Kendrick Lamar:]
"I remember you was conflicted
Misusing your influence
Sometimes I did the same
Abusing my power, full of resentment
Resentment that turned into a deep depression
Found myself screaming in the hotel room
I didn't wanna self destruct
The evils of Lucy was all around me
So I went running for answers
Until I came home
But that didn't stop survivor's guilt
Going back and forth trying to convince myself the stripes I earned
Or maybe how A-1 my foundation was
But while my loved ones was fighting the continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new one
A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination
Made me wanna go back to the city and tell the homies what I learned
The word was respect
Just because you wore a different gang colour than mines
Doesn't mean I can't respect you as a black man
Forgetting all the pain and hurt we caused each other in these streets
If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us
But I don't know, I'm no mortal man, maybe I'm just another nigga"

Shit and that's all I wrote
I was gonna call it Anotha Nigga but, it ain't really a poem, I just felt like it's something you probably could relate to. Other than that, now that I finally got a chance to holla at you, I always wanted to ask you about a certain situa-, about a metaphor actually, you spoke on the ground. What you mean 'bout that, what the ground represent?

[2Pac:]
The ground is gonna open up and swallow the evil. That's how I see it, my word is bond. I see and the ground is the symbol for the poor people, the poor people is gonna open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people. Cause the rich people gonna be so fat, they gonna be so appetising, you know what I'm saying, wealthy, appetising. The poor gonna be so poor and hungry, you know what I'm saying it's gonna be like... there might be some cannibalism out this mutha, they might eat the rich

[Kendrick Lamar:]
Aight so let me ask you this then, do you see yourself as somebody that's rich or somebody that made the best of their own opportunities?

[2Pac:]
I see myself as a natural born hustler, a true hustler in every sense of the word. I took nothin', I took the opportunities, I worked at the most menial and degrading job and built myself up so I could get it to where I owned it. I went from having somebody manage me to me hiring the person that works my management company. I changed everything I realised my destiny in a matter of five years you know what I'm saying I made myself a millionaire. I made millions for a lot of people now it's time to make millions for myself, you know what I'm saying. I made millions for the record companies, I made millions for these movie companies, now I make millions for us

[Kendrick Lamar:]
And through your different avenues of success, how would you say you managed to keep a level of sanity?

[2Pac:]
By my faith in God, by my faith in the game, and by my faith in all good things come to those that stay true. You know what I'm saying, and it was happening to me for a reason, you know what I'm saying, I was noticing, I was punching the right buttons and it was happening. So it's no problem, you know I mean it's a problem but I'm not finna let them know. I'm finna go straight through

[Kendrick Lamar:]
Would you consider yourself a fighter at heart or somebody that only reacts when they back is against the wall?

[2Pac:]
I like to think that at every opportunity I've ever been threatened with resistance it's been met with resistance. And not only me but it goes down my family tree. You know what I'm saying, it's in my veins to fight back

[Kendrick Lamar:]
Aight well, how long you think it take before niggas be like, we fighting a war, I'm fighting a war I can't win and I wanna lay it all down

[2Pac:]
In this country a black man only have like 5 years we can exhibit maximum strength, and that's right now while you a teenager, while you still strong or while you still wanna lift weights, while you still wanna shoot back. Cause once you turn 30 it's like they take the heart and soul out of a man, out of a black man in this country. And you don't wanna fight no more. And if you don't believe me you can look around, you don't see no loud mouth 30-year old muthafuckas

[Kendrick Lamar:]
That's crazy, because me being one of your offspring of the legacy you left behind I can truly tell you that there's nothing but turmoil goin' on so I wanted to ask you what you think is the future for me and my generation today?

[2Pac:]
Shit, I think that niggas is tired-a grabbin' shit out the stores and next time it's a riot there's gonna be bloodshed for real. I don't think America can know that. I think American think we was just playing and it's gonna be some more playing but it ain't gonna be no playing. It's gonna be murder, you know what I'm saying, it's gonna be like Nat Turner, 1831, up in this muthafucka. You know what I'm saying, it's gonna happen

[Kendrick Lamar:]
That's crazy man. In my opinion, only hope that we kinda have left is music and vibrations, lotta people don't understand how important it is. Sometimes I be like, get behind a mic and I don't know what type of energy I'mma push out, or where it comes from. Trip me out sometimes

[2Pac:]
Because the spirits, we ain't really rappin', we just letting our dead homies tell stories for us

[Kendrick Lamar:]
Damn

I wanted to read one last thing to you. It's actually something a good friend had wrote describing my world. It says:

"The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it
Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it, in order to protect itself from this mad city
While consuming its environment the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive
One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him, but praises the butterfly
The butterfly represents the talent, the thoughtfulness, and the beauty within the caterpillar
But having a harsh outlook on life the caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak and figures out a way to pimp it to his own benefits
Already surrounded by this mad city the caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon which institutionalizes him
He can no longer see past his own thoughts
He's trapped
When trapped inside these walls certain ideas start to take roots, such as going home, and bringing back new concepts to this mad city
The result?
Wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant
Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered, ending the eternal struggle
Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same."

What's your perspective on that?
Pac?
Pac?
Pac?!

[e_wind]

Discuss.

[MusiKel Mama]

I think that the anger/frustration of black people in America stems from the fact that no matter how enlightened or educated you try to be, that the system is constructed to externalize your experience...it gives you nothing but material poverty, marginalization, and discrimination...and so when you made to feel like you are perpetually in survival mode, you can't even begin to recognize the spiritual poverty that ensues when you are treated like an animal...a rat in a cage. And I think the caterpillar/butterfly metaphor is at first glance Kafkaesque, but ultimately becomes an analogy for Kendrick's own transcendence. When PAC doesn't answer, it is because Kendrick no longer needs an externalized teacher. He has transformed himself into what he admired...into something he could not have imagined in a "lesser", but necessary form.
There is a parable in the bible that says " be like a servant waiting for the return of the master." We all tend to think of the master as some external incarnation, a projection, of God. But this is still ego, attaching a name and face to the nameless and formless.  When we stop looking outward, the truth arises from the unmanifested through the vehicle of our being. It requires no resistance. It is beyond the conditions of race, gender, etc. This realization actualizes Kendrick beyond Pac, whose life ended by way of his own inner violence, of his own discord. Pac unfortunately succumbed to the external. Perhaps this is Kendrick's emancipation from it.

[oistheone]

Cannot stop listening to this album.

I'm VERY curious to see how he will integrate this jazzy vibe into his sets. He's made the jump to headliner for this festival season, so I am praying he goes big and shows up with a huge band.

Also, "Institutionalized" might be my song of the year right now.

I remember you was conflicted.

[e_wind]

I'm really into "u" right now, but King Kunta will be my best song of 2015. In conversation yesterday I compared TPAB as 2015s What's Going On?  Which is pretty favorable imo

[Fully]

King Kunta is great, but I'm in the Institutionalized camp for song of the year. The entire album is packed lyrically and the jazz riffs remind me of John Coltrane. I don't even feel like I'm close to digesting all the meaning in this work yet after two weeks of listening to it.

[BigHerm]

Its his best album in my opinion. Simply incredible.


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[Santo]

Picked this up today. Previously unreleased outtakes from the Butterfly sessions. I'm a sucker for signed vinyl.

https://slyvinyl.com/genres/hip-hop-rap/kendrick-lamar-untitled-unamastered-limited-edition-signed-and-autographed-lp