When Kendrick Lamar released good kid, m.A.A.d city in 2012, he handed us a film in album form — a Compton coming-of-age saga told through confession, confrontation and cruising beats. It was about trying to stay pure in a polluted world, a spiritual son to Boyz n the Hood and The Diary of Alicia Keys alike.
But To Pimp a Butterfly doesn’t just extend that story — it explodes it. Where good kid looked outward at the traps and temptations of the neighborhood, Butterfly dives inward to wrestle with the soul that survived it. This is the sound of a young prophet realizing he’s been handed a megaphone — and trying to decide if it’s a blessing or a curse.
“We gon’ be alright.”
Musically, Butterfly moves like a mural — all curves, colors and crowded corners. The record stretches the DNA of West Coast rap into new jazz dimensions, pulling in Thundercat’s elastic bass, Kamasi Washington’s celestial horn arrangements and Terrace Martin’s fusion instincts. Kendrick takes the moral panic of Public Enemy, the rhythmic elasticity of OutKast and the political sneer of The Clash, then filters it all through his Compton reality. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back taught him that an album could be a movement. Stankonia showed that an MC could bend funk and hip-hop into a prism of Black futurism. London Calling whispered that revolution needs melody — and that rebellion sometimes dances. Kendrick learned those lessons, then applied them in a language entirely his own.
The album’s central metaphor — the butterfly emerging from the pimped-out cocoon of fame, trauma and systemic oppression — defines its emotional terrain. Kendrick plays every role: the kid, the preacher, the hater, the savior, the self-doubter,and often, the hypocrite. He doesn’t just hold up a mirror to the culture — he interrogates himself, asking if he’s any different from the forces he condemns. Across sixteen tracks, he stages a battle between ego and empathy, guilt and grace, self-hate and self-love.
“Wesley’s Theory” bursts open like a Parliament-Funkadelic fever dream — George Clinton and Thundercat co-piloting the mothership. It’s Kendrick stepping into the light only to see the strings attached — mocking the racist notion that Black success is somehow a mistake and exposing how fame can morph into another form of control.
“King Kunta” is the album’s strut, the James Brown stomp that anchors the chaos. It’s self-mythology as resistance, a song that rewires power back into the body. “Now I run the game, got the whole world talkin’,” Kendrick proclaims, his voice both boastful and burdened. You can hear Chuck D’s militancy in the cadence, André 3000’s theatricality in the phrasing and Joe Strummer’s defiant bite in the delivery.
Then comes the collapse. “u” is what happens when self-belief turns to self-interrogation. “Loving you is complicated,” Kendrick chants, descending into a hotel-room breakdown that sounds like it’s being recorded through tears and liquor. It’s one of the rawest vocal performances in modern music — a man auditing his own soul in real time. If King Kunta is the coronation, u is the crown slipping off.
But redemption still flickers. “i”, with its Isley Brothers-sampling cheer, turns self-love into a sermon. On the album version, it’s presented as a live performance — complete with hecklers and interruptions — reminding us that even joy must be defended. “I love myself,” he declares, not as narcissism but necessity.
“The Blacker the Berry” hits like a riot in the blood. It’s Kendrick’s most vicious clash, the fury of being both victim and participant in a broken system. “You hate me, don’t you? You hate my people,” he spits, his voice a clenched fist. Yet the song ends with a gut-punch twist — a confession that complicates every preceding bar. It’s not just a political statement but a personal reckoning: Kendrick knows he can preach liberation while still falling short of it. His genius lies in naming that contradiction before anyone else can.
Elsewhere, “Alright” became the soundtrack of a generation’s protest marches. Its hook — “We gon’ be alright” — is both chant and prayer, hope rendered in defiance. And “How Much a Dollar Cost”, Barack Obama’s favorite track of 2015, turns a gas station encounter into a parable of compassion and consequence, framing empathy as spiritual currency.
By the time we reach “Mortal Man”, Kendrick has completed his metamorphosis, or at least survived another cocoon. The track closes with an astonishing poetic device — a conversation with Tupac Shakur, resurrected through an archival interview. Over gentle jazz chords, Kendrick reads a poem that’s been unfolding piece by piece across the record:
“I remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence / Sometimes I did the same…”
The words build as the album does, reframing each track in hindsight. When Kendrick finishes, he turns to Tupac — his spiritual ancestor — and asks questions about struggle, faith and fame. Tupac answers in his recorded voice, eerily alive, until the dialogue fades and Kendrick calls out one last time: “Pac? Pac?” Silence. It’s one of the most haunting codas in modern music — the sound of a student realizing the teacher’s gone, and the torch has already been passed.
The album artwork mirrors that passing of power. On the cover, a mob of Black men and children stand jubilant on the White House lawn, clutching cash and champagne, a white judge sprawled dead at their feet. Its triumph and tragedy compressed into a single image — part satire, part prophecy. Like The Clash’s London Calling cover (Paul Simonon smashing his bass), it weaponizes chaos as message. Both images capture revolution not as abstraction, but as emotion — messy, human, immediate.
As for when to listen to To Pimp a Butterfly? Dusk, without question. The sun should be giving up, the streetlights just flickering on. It’s not a daytime album — too dense for sunshine, too restless for sleep. Play it in your car on an aimless drive, or alone in your Ansley Park living room when the world feels heavy but you still want to believe in change. It demands attention and then rewards it with revelation.
In the years since its release, To Pimp a Butterfly has influenced J. Cole, Killer Mike, Chance the Rapper, Travis Scott and Tyler, The Creator — artists who built worlds where confession and confrontation coexist. You can hear its pulse in Childish Gambino’s grooves, its defiance in Beyoncé and SZA’s anthems and its narrative ambition in Drake (before the Compton smoke blew his way) and even Billie Eilish, who borrow its sense of scale and introspection.
Kendrick Lamar didn’t just make a classic — he built a monument. If good kid, m.A.A.d city was about survival, To Pimp a Butterfly is about resurrection. It’s what happens when the kid grows wings and learns they can carry more than just himself. Like its predecessors in the protest music lineage we’ve covered previously in these pages, it’s an album that insists art can still shake the ground beneath us — if we’re brave enough to listen.
Megan’s favorite song on this album is “For Sale?”. In the beginning of the track, Bilal taunts, “I thought you was keeping it gangsta, I thought this what you wanted / They say if you scared, go to church / But remember, he knows the Bible too.” While most tracks on this album display Kendrick playing the preacher, this song reads more as a repent of sins from a dark confession booth. But as Kendrick fears, the figure on the other side is evil, manipulative and one step ahead of him. Aforementioned in “For Free?”, Kendrick shines light on the empty promises of “Lucy”, a reference to Lucifer and all of his temptations.
Internet theories suggest an even deeper double entendre that “Lucy” could also represent Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group. In this case, “Lucy” is literally an industry tycoon, promising everything to Kendrick if he signs a record deal. Kendrick describes fame as the bait being dangled in front of every rapper’s face, but taking it puts you at risk of getting chewed up and spit out by the industry yourself. The drugs, the girls, the money and everything else that had been glorified his whole life were now at his feet times ten, and “Lucy” encourages he indulge in it all. One wrong move, though, and the fame is over, scrutiny takes place and there’s a chance that he could lose all of these things that he worked so hard to overcome in the first place. The taste of fame turns sour, the high wears off, the confession booth morphs into an empty hotel room, and Kendrick refuses to swim in a system designed for him to drown.
Wendell’s favorite song on the album is “King Kunta.” It’s Kendrick at his funkiest and fiercest, a four-minute sermon on power, pride and peril. Over a groove that could’ve slithered straight out of a Funkadelic jam or an Ice Cube session, he crowns himself with swagger while reminding you the throne’s still wired to the grid. In one breath, he nods to Alex Haley’s Roots, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Richard Pryor’s tragic comedy, Bill Clinton’s borrowed rhythm and public fall and Michael Jackson’s moonwalk — tracing a heredity of Black genius that dazzles, stumbles and endures beneath the same merciless spotlight. It’s the kind of track where the beat dances while the lyrics keep score, a reminder that even when you run the game, the system still keeps its hand on the switch.
Kendrick Lamar’s work can be found here and his music can be found on all streaming platforms and wherever records are sold. You are likely to find his songs played on SiriusXM stations Hip Hop Nation, Shade, Rock The Bells Radio and The Heat. He last played Atlanta in April and we are sure that he’ll be back soon.
