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Artists Of The Year CMU Approved
Approved 2015: Kendrick Lamar
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 16 December 2015
Every day this week in the CMU Approved slot, we’ll be looking at one of our five favourite artists of 2015. Today, Kendrick Lamar…
It’s hard to make a list of artists who really meant something in 2015 without including Kendrick Lamar. Look, here he is, in the CMU Approved Of The Year list proving just that point. The buzz around the release of his latest album, ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’, was so great that he promptly broke the record for the most number of streams in a single day on Spotify upon its release (an accolade otherwise claimed by more household names, most recently Adele).
In the months following the release, Lamar also surely broke some sort of record for the number of articles examining an album in minute detail. Because while his 2012 album, ‘Good Kid, Maad City’, put him firmly on the map, ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ fixed his place permanently, earning him titles like, in the words of The Verge, “black America’s poet laureate”.
It’s a record so complex, both musically and lyrically, that nine months later each listen feels both familiar and brand new. It’s both deeply personal and an extraordinary piece of big picture thinking. If Lamar can maintain this level of creativity as he heads deeper into his career it will be amazing, but if this is the last album he ever makes he’s already done more than most ever achieve.
Watch the videos for ‘Alright’ and ‘These Walls’ here:
