1001 Albums Summary

Listening to this album felt like watching a movie. It’s so theatrical - the songs feel like they in constant conversation with each other - a stage play depicting the most vulnerable and intimate moments of someone’s anecdotal experience of being a black man in America. Lamar crafts a story with the finesse of an architect, and the sincerity of a poet. I haven’t really been much of a rap listener in the past, but this album turned me. “Authentic” and “real” and “raw” seem to be the buzzwords of the music industry these days, but this album actually embodies them. Lamar has given us, the listeners, deeply personal insight into his life, soundtracked with a symphony of sound that immerses you into his world. I would genuinely be interested in seeing him score a film, I think he would be brilliant. His lyricism (and of course rhythm) is beyond anything I’ve ever heard before. If this album doesn’t prove to you that rap is poetry, I don’t know what will.