Brooks wrote:

Am probably just more sensitive to images, including the written word, than speech.

three1ne wrote:

Kano's new singles are fucking full yes!
Hail
New Banger

Brooks wrote:

Meanwhile I heard an Action Bronson number for the first time today. I had him down as a probable goofball/novelty rapper. Actually he's a 90s boombap preservationist, which I suppose is a gimmick of its own.

Sounds so identical to Ghostface it's sort of unsettling.

The trouble isn't so much that Lamar is appearing in commercials — it's that he's selling his revolutionary agenda to a shoe company. Corporations have been co-opting "revolutionary" language for years to sell products. It's a brilliant stratagem on the corporations' part, as it uses active language and taps into fundamental youthful drives for rebellion and liberation. But the outcome is selling things — not changing things. As political scholar Thomas Frank wrote in his 1997 book The Conquest of Cool, consuming is "redefined as 'rebellion'" in order to "transform the myriad petty tyrannies of economic life — all the complaints about conformity, oppression, bureaucracy, meaninglessness ... into rationales for consuming."

Facewon wrote:

kendrick selling Reebok

The trouble isn't so much that Lamar is appearing in commercials — it's that he's selling his revolutionary agenda to a shoe company. Corporations have been co-opting "revolutionary" language for years to sell products. It's a brilliant stratagem on the corporations' part, as it uses active language and taps into fundamental youthful drives for rebellion and liberation. But the outcome is selling things — not changing things. As political scholar Thomas Frank wrote in his 1997 book The Conquest of Cool, consuming is "redefined as 'rebellion'" in order to "transform the myriad petty tyrannies of economic life — all the complaints about conformity, oppression, bureaucracy, meaninglessness ... into rationales for consuming."

Could have gone in the ills thread too.

"We can no longer sit idly by while the powers that be tell us how to live, how to think, how to act, all the while writing about so-and-so not caring about us," Lamar says in the commercial. They're solid lines, well-aligned with the message of the record. But in speaking them, Lamar becomes the voice of one of those "powers that be" telling us "how to act" — buy expensive sneakers, that's how you communicate your personality and vision of the world. After a record concerned largely with how he should use his celebrity influence, this seems a wrong turn.

It's a message antithetical to the one on To Pimp a Butterfly. So many songs on To Pimp a Butterfly are dedicated to downplaying the importance of material goods. On "Wesley's Theory" a satirical and sinister embodiment of Uncle Sam encourages Lamar to buy more material goods because he "deserves it." On "For Sale?" Lucifer himself (embodied by "Lucy") offers Lamar millions in material goods, effectively in exchange for his soul. The record, though, is meant to show that none of those things bring Lamar any sense of fulfillment.