Kendrick Lamar: "King Kunta"
Last night, Kendrick Lamar‘s long-thirsted-after new album, To Pimp a Butterfly, materialized suddenly on iTunes. It’s a prickly, restless collection, informed by (among other things) swampy mutant-funk and neo-soul psychedelia (a bit of Badu and D’Angelo, a bit of Love Below-like outright silliness). Kendrick carves his lane right down the middle of it all, channeling the trad gangsta rap of his home state—some of Ice Cube‘s vitriol, some breathless, syncopated flows in the vein of ‘Pac or Kurupt—and reciting poems to cool down. But for all of the gesticulation in the direction of funk, the album rarely grooves. Perhaps the most unabashed example to the contrary is the roughshod boogie of “King Kunta”, which leaked Friday ahead of the album. It’s G-funk with the screws loosened, like Kendrick corralling a mythical crew of ‘70s studio musicians to wile out on top of the perfect Quik rhythm section.
Kendrick is the cocky MC who grabbed the mic from the DJ, launching into a stark cadence that’s equal parts The Payback-era James Brown and the irascible chipmunked Prince from “Housequake”. After crowning himself royalty, the King begins to rile up the crowd: disparaging everything he had to climb over to get to where he is now, swatting haters and wannabes, and pushing everyone in the room to channel their anger—deep-seated, even beyond expression—into a maniacal two-step. He stunts like Suga Free, L.A.’s most irreverent pimp rapper, exclaiming “Bitch, where were you when I was walking?” as the chorus drops. Loosely translatable to “Look at me now,” it’s the song’s consummate war cry.
The track builds carefully in militant energy, as an ominous guitar lick and some errant vocoder noodling darken the mood, drowning out Thundercat’s grounding, modest bass. The whole thing splinters off into a decadent guitar solo, and you can almost imagine Kendrick stalking the stage, mugging fiercely before disappearing in a puff of smoke. “King Kunta” lasts only as long as one side of a 10-inch single, and throws To Pimp a Butterfly into beautiful relief for only a moment, but it’s as full of evocative contradictions as anything he’s done.
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