a reminder that he doesn't necessarily want to solve other people's problems, but he did want to talk about his own for a while.

I like this a lot more than the era I'm about to mention, but it reminds me of Overly Dedicated and my pondering over whether he'd pull all his talent and potential into a cohesive package or simply make a living as the modern Project Blowed offshoot and slowly fade into regionality or worse the way so many other Dre co-signs from his era did (clearly not a fair comparison, but I saw Kendrick as a weirder Bishop Lamont for a minute)

Again, I like this now a lot more than I liked pre-Section.80 Kendrick then (who I've almost unconditionally loved since) but it does remind me that, at the end of the day, this was the dude who remade Lil' Wayne albums and seemed quite open to the idea of sacrificing songcraft in favor of raw emotion again and again.

Sometimes I've felt like arguing it's more surprising he became as inseparable from the idea of a concept album as he did these past six years; in many ways, Damn. feels a bit like Kendrick coming home.

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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz