Before I get into this review let me first go over the concept and making of Damn., by Kendrick Lamar. Many hardcore Kendrick fans and hip-hop heads dislike damn because of its more commercial, trap sounds, as opposed to Kendrick's more complex, jazz-influenced sound on To Pimp a Butterfly. On Damn, Kendrick utilizes much more trap influences in not only his instrumentals but his flow and voice at times as well. At first, I wasn’t a fan of this either. I was looking forward to another deep, insightful album by Kendrick full of conscious lyrics and jazzy instrumentals. But, after digging deeper into the meaning of the album and attempting to see Kendrick’s thought process throughout the album, I realized that Damn is really a wolf in sheep’s skin. Yes, Kendrick does incorporate a lot of mainstream, commercial sounds throughout the album, but his subject matter has no less depth than TPAB and no less rawness than GKMC. In an interview on Big Boy’s Neighborhood, Kendrick was asked about why he named the record ‘Damn’, where he said that “[there were] so many different ways you could put it in my head from the concept ‘damned if I do damned if I don’t’, the loudness of the record, it just screamed that in my face”. Later on in the interview Kendrick also touches on his influences for making Damn, saying that “Damn is a hybrid of all these projects. It was finally me being able to take elements from Good Kid, the message behind TPAB, the sonics and beats slappin on Good Kid, and the rawness of being able to do what I want on Section. 80.” The album also involved 20 different (credited) producers including Dr. Dre, DJ Dahi, James Blake, The Alchemist, Steve Lacy, and many more critically acclaimed producers. 

The tracklist and overall concept of Damn is really one of the biggest reasons I love this project as much as I do. Five (7 if you count ‘loyalty’ and ‘feel’ as feelings) of the songs on the album are named after feelings; ‘love’, ‘fear’, ‘lust’, ‘humble’, ‘pride’. Kendrick talked about the song titles in the same interview with Big Boy, saying that he’d “write a verse and do the whole song then I’d feel or look at words that I feel like captured [my] emotion”. 

There are multiple different theories surrounding Damn’s concept and it would take me days to write about each one, so I’ll just write my favorite. While Kendrick made Damn about his own, personal struggles through self-reflection, Damn can in some ways be an interpretation of how everyone in America felt at the time of its release. The album dropped in 2017, a year after Trump was elected. At this time, America was more divided than it’s ever been and many people felt the emotions Kendrick portrays throughout the album. Kendrick is trying to encourage the listener to put everything in an opposite perspective instead of constantly viewing things so one-sidedly. 

The tracklist helps to reassure this theory, as all the songs on the album have a counterpart; DNA/Blood, Love/Lust, Feel/Loyalty, Pride/Humble, God/Duckworth, XXX/Fear, Yah/Element. I like to believe that while Kendrick was making an album for himself about himself, he unintentionally setting a common ground between him and us, showing that no matter your stature we all feel the same negative and positive emotions. 

The very first lyrics of the album’s intro song ‘Blood’ show the duality soon to come throughout the album as the songs feature ‘Bēkon’ eerily sings “Is it wickedness? Is it weakness? You decide. Are we gonna live or die?”. As the song continues, Kendrick narrates a story of himself getting shot by a blind woman after trying to helo her. While the song doesn’t seem important at the moment, ‘Blood’ is actually extremely important to the plot in damn. Kendrick's monologue on ‘Blood’ also reiterates Kendrick’s usage of “damned if I do damned if I don’t”, as obeying God and helping the women gets him killed, and disobeying God, and ignoring the women could also result in punishment from god.

 The following song ‘DNA’ startles the listener at first with a hard-hitting, heavy bass instrumental and an extremely energetic, almost angry-sounding verse from Kendrick. The subject matter for DNA is almost as heavy as the beat. Throughout the first verse, Kendrick refers to things “in his DNA” which are meant to signify different hardships and struggles he himself and many other black Americans were born into as if it’s just in their DNA. You can’t talk about DNA without talking about the beat switch, and yes, Mike Will executed the beat switch flawlessly, but Kendrick is what really makes it so great. Kendrick comes back onto his second verse with even more emotion than the first, as now expresses the anger he feels when experiencing racism in his day-to-day. His rhyme and flow scheme is so insane too. You can’t listen to this song and not think “he’s one of the greatest rappers ever.” ‘Yah’ works to slow the mood down. The instrumental is much slower and everything about the song - instrumental, lyrics, vocals, and mixing - is the most ambient you’ll hear on the album. Kendrick doubles back to DNA in his second verse on ‘Yah’, where he again references a Fox segment criticizing his song ‘Alright’. Kendrick sings “Interviews wanna know my thoughts and opinions, Fox News wanna use my name for percentage, Somebody tell Geraldo this [man] got some ambition, I'm not a politician, I'm not 'bout a religion, I'm an Israelite, don't call me black no mo', That word is only a color, it ain't facts no mo'”. 

The next song ‘Element’ is my personal favorite and is honestly one of my favorite Kendrick songs of all time. The instrumental is a perfect mix of slow and ambient with fast and hard-hitting. The slower production comes from James Blake, one of my personal favorite artists in general, and the faster, heavier bass production comes from Sounwave, who has produced a lot of my favorite Kendrick/TDE songs. Again Kendrick delivers an incredible amount of energy and emotion to his verses. Not only does his vocal infection make his verses incredible, but his rhyme scheme continues to be unmatched. The second verse is one of my favorite verses on the album as Kendrick utilizes one of his many different voices, this time sounding more animated. As for subject matter here, Kendrick reflects on how his experience growing up in Compton brought him to where he is today. Every chorus ends with Kendrick saying “they won’t take me out my element, Nah they won’t take me out my element”. No matter how much fortune and fame Kendrick may accumulate through his career he will always be tied to where he came from, regardless of how negative it may have been, Kendrick will never let go of who he once was and the element he was once surrounded by. On ‘Feel’, Kendrick reflects on all the negative feelings fame has caused him. The song begins with him and the feature ‘Chelsea Blythe’ singing “ain’t nobody praying for me’, which symbolizes Kendricks’s feeling of isolation and the feeling that nobody cares about him. In the first verse almost every single line starts with “I feel like”, followed by Kendricks feelings of self hate and depression. The second verse, one of the longest on the album, shows Kendrick diving further into his current struggles, emotionally describing his pains while still pushing the narrative that he’s the greatest. 

The most prominent feature on the album comes from Rhianna in ‘Loyalty’, which just so happens to be one of the most popular songs on the album. On ‘Feel’, Kendrick speaks on feelings of isolation and a lack of loyalty by those around him, and on ‘Loyalty” he and Rhianna muse on the importance of loyalty in all aspects of a relationship. The production of ‘Loyalty’ is absolutely incredible. DJ Dahi actually samples Bruno Mars 24K Magic, which makes for an incredible, electronic-sounding background layered under hard sitting bass and drums. 

‘Pride’ can almost be described as alternative hip-hop, as the instrumental primarily stems from a light, trippy guitar from Alternative artist Steve Lacy. In pride, we see Kendrick struggling to humble himself as he knows pride could get him killed. Instead, he blames other people for his inability to be humble, singing “I can’t fake humble just ‘cause your a** is insecure.” While Kendrick stays cocky throughout ‘Pride’, the song comes off as a slow, easy-going, experimental track from Kendrick without any of the super standout or provocative sounds you’d expect on a song about how great Kendrick is. This doesn’t last long though as the next track ‘Humble’ became one of the biggest songs of 2017. Humble is the complete opposite of pride sonically, full of hard-hitting bass and drums, as well as a fiery flow from Kendrick. Lyrically, Kendrick seems to be talking to himself throughout humble. When he says “be humble, sit down” on the hooks Kendrick has resorted to forcing himself to be humble. Although, Kendrick could also be showing his lack of self-control as the song could be dedicated towards every other rapper who thinks they’re as good as him. While I’m honestly kind of sad that Humble became the standout track on the album, I can’t deny the fact that every song on the album deserves as much attention as possible, so I’m glad there was at least one song to blow up. 

Recently, ‘Lust’ has been on constant repeat. The wavy guitar and eerie vocals on the beginning instrumental sets the song off to be another alternative track, but as the first chorus begins the instrumental starts skipping, and Dj Dahi delivers hard-hitting bass. While the instrumental and production are really what stand out for me, Kendrick still delivers on his verses, telling stories of a man, a woman living, and Kendrick himself living lives of lust. Following ‘Pride’ and ‘Humble’, where Kendricks’s cockiness took over, ‘Lust’ shows Kendrick reflecting on the damage pride can cause when creating a lustful lifestyle. ‘Love’ is another one of the more popular songs on the album, and rightfully so. Zacari delivers an extremely catchy hook and the production over Kendrick verses, layering his voice with added synths in the background, sound incredible. Throughout the song Kendrick seeks validation from the women in his life, asking if she’d love him no matter what. 

The next song ‘XXX’ has become one of the most memorable songs on the album. While Rhianna was the most recognizable feature on the album, U2 is by far the most unexpected. The beginning of the song has another hard-hitting, bass-driven instrumental with Kendrick rapping about a story involving his friend’s son getting killed. If you’ve never heard this song you can’t really understand how unexpected and hard-hitting the bass drop is. At the end of Kendricks second verse he raps “Ain't no Black Power when your baby killed by a coward, I can't even keep the peace, don't you f**k with one of ours, It be murder in the street, it be bodies in the hour”, followed by Kendrick saying he has to speak at a convention, which turns out to be teaching kids about gun control. The whole song is really a testament to the violence occurring all over America. 

‘Fear’ utilizes a slow, lo-fi instrumental with Kendrick rapping about three different experiences with fear throughout Kendrick growing up. In the chorus of the song Kendrick raps “If I could smoke fear away, I’d roll that mo********er up”. Kendrick doesn’t smoke, but he recognizes how using drugs as a vice for fear can become an endless cycle of destruction. On ‘Fear’ we see Kendrick at possibly his most vulnerable, rapping about all the fears and depressions that came with growing up in the hood and becoming successful. 

The final two songs, ‘God’ and ‘Duckworth’ show the most duality of the album. In ‘God’, Kendrick is relating his success to “what god feels like”. Kendrick is reflecting on how happy he is with his success and how he got where he is on his own. In ‘Duckworth’ however, Kendrick tells a story of how TDE’s owner ‘Top Dawg’, who eventually allowed Kendrick to follow his hip-hop dreams, almost killed Kendrick’s father ‘Duckworth’ at a chicken restaurant. In ‘Duckworth’ Kendrick is acknowledging that he can only thank God for his success, saying that “Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence? Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin' life, While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight”. 

The album comes full circle in the final song ‘Duckworth’, as Kendricks’s verse ends the same way it did in the intro song ‘Blood’, with a gunshot. The final line of the album is “So, I was walking down the street the other day”, which is the same way Kendricks’s narration on ‘Blood’ started. 

The way Kendrick makes the album come full circle through just two songs is incredible. These two songs and the way they end perfectly reflect each other and the theory of “damned if I do damned if I don’t”. He can either obey God and get killed by the old women or he can disobey god and save his life from the women, but because he disobeyed God the event that occurred between Duckworth and Top Dog may have ended differently, which in turn results in Kendrick “[growing] up without a father” only to “die in a gunfight”. 

All in all, I love this album in its entirety. The production is flawless, and while it does experience more commercial sounds it doesn’t stop Kendrick from staying original. Kendricks subject matter and lyricism illustrate his own struggles while still shedding light on the evils of the world. Lastly, Kendrick again shows why he is the greatest rapper to ever live with intricate rhyme schemes, incredible flow, strong emotion, and immense versatility.