kendrick Lamar Rolling Stone Cover + Snippet of Article
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Jimmy ValenTime
A really good Lawyer
Kendrick Lamar describes his new album, 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' to Rolling Stone as “honest, fearful and unapologetic.” Theo Wenner
On the heels of his two Grammy wins last month, hip-hop superstar Kendrick Lamar appears on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone (on stands Friday) and goes deep, opening up about everything from his rough adolescence on the streets of Compton to his ongoing battles with depression and self-doubt. In his most revealing interview yet, the 27-year-old speaks candidly with contributing editor Josh Eells about his struggles with self-confidence in the wake of his 2012 breakthrough, good kid, m.A.A.d city, and how he navigated his newfound success and ultimately overcame his obstacles through his music.
Sidebar
Kendrick Lamar's New Album: Everything We Know »
We caught up with Lamar at some of his favorite spots in his hometown of Compton, where he shared harrowing stories from his past including run-ins with the police – or as he called them, "the biggest gang in California." We photographed him for the cover in Hollywood (see video from the shoot below) and visited him at his L.A. studio, where he was scrambling to finish his upcoming album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which is due March 24th. Although he was anxious, Lamar said he loves the recording process: “After [the album] comes out, it’s just a numbers game. The funnest part is making it.”
Lamar also gave Rolling Stone a preview of six new songs from To Pimp a Butterfly, in addition to the two already released. The songs range from the intensely personal to the swaggeringly aggressive – like “King Kunta,” which could be the theme song from a Seventies blaxploitation flick. When Pharrell Williams first heard the track, he praised it by calling it “unapologetically black.” “It’s just him expressing how he’s feeling at the moment,” says Lamar’s longtime producer Mark “Sounwave” Spears. “And right now, he’s mad.”
Sonically, Lamar’s new album is adventurous, incorporating elements of funk, spoken-word poetry, and free-jazz, augmented by lots of live playing. (Lamar says he was listening to a lot of Miles Davis and Parliament while making it.) “It’s a unique sound,” says Sounwave. “Every producer I’ve ever met was sending me stuff [for the album], but there was a one-in-a-million chance you could send a beat that actually fit what we were doing.” Lamar’s longtime engineer, Derek "MixedByAli" Ali, says the rapper would often talk in moods: “He would say, ‘I want it to sound eerie,’ or ‘I want it to sound like you’re driving past something.’ Or he talks in colors: ‘Make it sound purple. Make it sound light green.’”
Sidebar
9 Ways Kendrick Lamar's 'Control' Verse Changed the World »
Lamar is vague about what specifically the title To Pimp a Butterfly means (“That will be taught in college courses someday,” he says). But he describes the album as “honest, fearful and unapologetic.” “You take a black kid out of Compton and put him in the limelight, and you find answers about yourself you never knew you were searching for,” he said. “There’s some stuff in there, man. It’s a roller coaster. It builds.”
Also in this issue: Matthieu Aikins on the fight against ISIS in Baghdad, Patrick Doyle on Mumford & Sons and Modest Mouse, David Kushner on ***** founder Christopher Poole, plus Bob Odenkirk, Will Forte and more.
Look for the issue on stands and in the iTunes App Store this Friday, March 13th.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...r-inside-the-new-issue-20150311#ixzz3U5qUhzPS
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Jimmy ValenTime
A really good Lawyer
In 2012, Kendrick Lamar's Grammy-nominated, radio-dominating major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city, was immediately measured by the same yardstick as earth-shattering albums like Nas' Illmatic and Kanye West's The College Dropout. And like those MCs before him, anticipation for Lamar's follow-up was — and remains — sky high.
Sidebar
The Trials of Kendrick Lamar: Inside the New Issue »
However, besides a Grammy-winning standalone single, a bevy of feature performances, a missed September 2014 release date and new single, "The Blacker the Berry," there hasn't been a whole lot of concrete information out there regarding Lamar's March 23rd-bound return. Gathering the loose pieces from radio interviews, magazine features and our recent cover story, this is everything we can say about the record.
It is No Longer Untitled
Christopher Polk/Getty
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Lamar tells contributing editor Josh Eels that his third album will not be untitled or named Untitled. Instead, it's called To Pimp a Butterfly, a play on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. "Just putting the word 'pimp' next to 'butterfly'… It's a trip," Lamar says. "That's something that will be a phrase forever. It'll be taught in college courses — I truly believe that."
Lamar would later take to Instagram to reveal To Pimp a Butterfly's artwork and share the quote that spawned the album title: "Don't all dogs go to heaven? Don't Gangsta's boogie? Do owl shyt stank? Lions, Tigers & Bears. But TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY. Its the American dream nikka...."
Digi+Phonics is Definitely Involved, Dr. Dre is Possibly Involved
In our cover story, Lamar revealed that free jazz, 1970s funk, Miles Davis and Parliament were the main inspirations behind To Pimp a Butterfly's beats. "Every producer I've ever met was sending me stuff — but there was a one-in-a-million chance you could send us a beat that actually fit what we were doing," Digi+Phonics producer Mark "Sounwave" Spears told Rolling Stone.
In November, he told Hot 97, "Everything’s really in-house. Of course Dre, but I really stick with four producers that I’ve been working with since day one." It's safe to assume Lamar meant the Digi+Phonics crew — Sounwave, Tae Beast, Dave Free and Willie B.
In late 2013, a year after the release of good kid, m.A.A.d city, the first evidence that Lamar was working on new music at all came via a Beats by Dre commercial, with the rapper and Dr. Dre collaborating on a track later dubbed "It's Alive." However, a full version of the song was never released. In a September 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Lamar confirmed that he linked up Dre for some beats. "[Dre]'s just gone into the lab and made beats," he said. "He's trying to find that next thing — just really elevating himself and the team to grow as a creator." But what parts of Dre's input made the final cut is still unknown.
Lamar also admitted that he hit the studio with Pharrell Williams, but it's unclear whether those sessions were for the rapper's new album or if they ultimately resulted in Lamar's "It's On Again" collaboration with Alicia Keys that wound up on the Pharrell-produced The Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack.
There Will Be Guests...But Possibly Not Any Guest Rappers
In a Rolling Stone interview in September, Kendrick revealed that he had not yet approached any other MCs to provide features on his next LP. His last album, by contrast, featured cameos by Drake, Jay Rock, Dr. Dre and MC Eiht. "I have so much to say. It's almost selfish of me," Lamar said.
However, that doesn't mean that there won't be guests. "The Blacker the Berry" sports a cameo by dancehall star Assassin, who previously assisted on Kanye West's "I'm In It." And, in a Billboard interview, producer Terrace Martin added jazz pianist Robert Glasper, singer Lalah Hathaway and Anna Wise (who previously appeared on good kid's "Real") to the list of Lamar's new album collaborators.
It Will Be Politically Charged
Christopher Polk/Getty
Like D'Angelo's Black Messiah, To Pimp a Butterfly is informed by the recent tragic killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. "To me, the album is perfect for right now. If the world was happy, maybe we'd give you a happy album. But right now, we are not happy," Digi+Phonics producer Mark "Sounwave" Spears tells Rolling Stone .
As producer Terrace Martin tells Billboard of the recent single "The Blacker the Berry," "What [Lamar] is talking about is a perfect time for what's going on in life. It's a soulful record, it's a record that needed to be done, and it's like the modern times of Public Enemy. It's a black record. It's a record about being black and being proud at the end of the day."
Martin is strictly instructed by the rapper not to indulge any specific details about the upcoming LP, but the producer does offer up, "I know [Lamar's album] is going to touch somebody. I wanna say, 'It's gon' be big and the world gon' change over night and Obama gon' chill with us and the police gon' stop killing brothers and blacks can walk around safe,' but I can't say that."
Potential Inclusion: Untitled Track From 'The Colbert Report'
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/l...bum-everything-we-know-20150311#ixzz3U5rB9ajy
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Sidebar
The Trials of Kendrick Lamar: Inside the New Issue »
However, besides a Grammy-winning standalone single, a bevy of feature performances, a missed September 2014 release date and new single, "The Blacker the Berry," there hasn't been a whole lot of concrete information out there regarding Lamar's March 23rd-bound return. Gathering the loose pieces from radio interviews, magazine features and our recent cover story, this is everything we can say about the record.
It is No Longer Untitled
Christopher Polk/Getty
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Lamar tells contributing editor Josh Eels that his third album will not be untitled or named Untitled. Instead, it's called To Pimp a Butterfly, a play on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. "Just putting the word 'pimp' next to 'butterfly'… It's a trip," Lamar says. "That's something that will be a phrase forever. It'll be taught in college courses — I truly believe that."
Lamar would later take to Instagram to reveal To Pimp a Butterfly's artwork and share the quote that spawned the album title: "Don't all dogs go to heaven? Don't Gangsta's boogie? Do owl shyt stank? Lions, Tigers & Bears. But TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY. Its the American dream nikka...."
Digi+Phonics is Definitely Involved, Dr. Dre is Possibly Involved
In our cover story, Lamar revealed that free jazz, 1970s funk, Miles Davis and Parliament were the main inspirations behind To Pimp a Butterfly's beats. "Every producer I've ever met was sending me stuff — but there was a one-in-a-million chance you could send us a beat that actually fit what we were doing," Digi+Phonics producer Mark "Sounwave" Spears told Rolling Stone.
In November, he told Hot 97, "Everything’s really in-house. Of course Dre, but I really stick with four producers that I’ve been working with since day one." It's safe to assume Lamar meant the Digi+Phonics crew — Sounwave, Tae Beast, Dave Free and Willie B.
In late 2013, a year after the release of good kid, m.A.A.d city, the first evidence that Lamar was working on new music at all came via a Beats by Dre commercial, with the rapper and Dr. Dre collaborating on a track later dubbed "It's Alive." However, a full version of the song was never released. In a September 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Lamar confirmed that he linked up Dre for some beats. "[Dre]'s just gone into the lab and made beats," he said. "He's trying to find that next thing — just really elevating himself and the team to grow as a creator." But what parts of Dre's input made the final cut is still unknown.
Lamar also admitted that he hit the studio with Pharrell Williams, but it's unclear whether those sessions were for the rapper's new album or if they ultimately resulted in Lamar's "It's On Again" collaboration with Alicia Keys that wound up on the Pharrell-produced The Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack.
There Will Be Guests...But Possibly Not Any Guest Rappers
In a Rolling Stone interview in September, Kendrick revealed that he had not yet approached any other MCs to provide features on his next LP. His last album, by contrast, featured cameos by Drake, Jay Rock, Dr. Dre and MC Eiht. "I have so much to say. It's almost selfish of me," Lamar said.
However, that doesn't mean that there won't be guests. "The Blacker the Berry" sports a cameo by dancehall star Assassin, who previously assisted on Kanye West's "I'm In It." And, in a Billboard interview, producer Terrace Martin added jazz pianist Robert Glasper, singer Lalah Hathaway and Anna Wise (who previously appeared on good kid's "Real") to the list of Lamar's new album collaborators.
It Will Be Politically Charged
Christopher Polk/Getty
Like D'Angelo's Black Messiah, To Pimp a Butterfly is informed by the recent tragic killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. "To me, the album is perfect for right now. If the world was happy, maybe we'd give you a happy album. But right now, we are not happy," Digi+Phonics producer Mark "Sounwave" Spears tells Rolling Stone .
As producer Terrace Martin tells Billboard of the recent single "The Blacker the Berry," "What [Lamar] is talking about is a perfect time for what's going on in life. It's a soulful record, it's a record that needed to be done, and it's like the modern times of Public Enemy. It's a black record. It's a record about being black and being proud at the end of the day."
Martin is strictly instructed by the rapper not to indulge any specific details about the upcoming LP, but the producer does offer up, "I know [Lamar's album] is going to touch somebody. I wanna say, 'It's gon' be big and the world gon' change over night and Obama gon' chill with us and the police gon' stop killing brothers and blacks can walk around safe,' but I can't say that."
Potential Inclusion: Untitled Track From 'The Colbert Report'
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/l...bum-everything-we-know-20150311#ixzz3U5rB9ajy
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
SpacelySprockets
Veteran
he's already getting backlash from black women on twitter.. I personally just thought it was a light skinned chickOh Lord.... That magazine cover is gonna start some shyt.
Still FloW
Gawd Of Shinobi
check twitter... it already has.. SMFH 
BW really cant just let shyt be as it is...
BW really cant just let shyt be as it is...
Amazing. Lol....
The_King_of_Everything
Yeah.
fukkERY TIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMME
Craig Mack
New Album in January
I like that jacket
The_King_of_Everything
Yeah.
The machine
We really can't let artist make they're own legend. We're just going to start making stuff up now?
if this isn't some psuedo white washing stuff going on 
DontgetTired777
FINE$$E THE WORLD BREH'S
this pic is fuego
god bless those LA 24 hour self car wash spots
Jimmy ValenTime
A really good Lawyer
always suprisedsed what gets traction and what doesnt
