According to legend, the songs on untitled unmastered were part of a collection of songs that were going to make up Kendrick's follow-up to Good Kid, m.A.A.d City. But after going to Africa, he decided to start over and create the songs for To Pimp a Butterfly. An album that is one of the best albums, regardless of genre, of its time.

But I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Kendrick followed through and made an album based on the themes of untitled unmastered instead?

To me, it seems that Kendrick was equating modern days as the End of Days. There were a lot of references to the Apocalypse and some religious imagery.

But even though it's easy to form the idea that now is the End of Days, I think an album based upon that subject could easily become heavy-handed.

It's not fair to read into the themes of three or four songs and project the course and quality of an album that never was.

Like the album title suggests, these songs were closer to demos than fully realized songs. He reworks his final songs so much, even if the fundamentals of these songs were on the album, they likely would have ended up differently on a completed album.

While some of his songs work really well independently, his albums can't really be viewed apart from the whole.

In the end, the album that we saw was brilliant and a true musical event. Something that rarely happens in hip-hop these days.

But it's interesting to think about these things.

Freestyle Fellowship (except the content) especially the Haiku Detat albums…

I respect the album, but its just a reminder that a big factor in getting accolades is who the artist is associated with (Dr.Dre), otherwise the artist gets labeled as backpacker or alternative hip hop

To Pimp A Butterfly Kendrick? I disagree. Except very superficially. The Dre association being a major reason for Kendrick getting accolades seems off too. Because there are lots of acts he had that weren't even successful, let alone getting accolades. Eminem doesn't get accolades.

Is it possible Kendrick is just....really good? I mean, you might not like him too much, but I don't think you are the only person with an opinion about the issue.

>Eminem doesn't get accolades.

If it weren’t for Madlib and El-P collaborating with more mainstream accepted hip hop artists, they would still be stuck in the independent hip hop scene.

Yes, association plays a big factor. And yes, Kendrick does sound like Freestyle Fellowship, this has been brought up in the past.

Kendrick is a good mc, though he is not the first nor the only doing what he does. The media tends to overrate stuff, though that is not his fault,

1. Kendrick- especially on TPAB- has many strong influences. TPAB is NOT only influenced by FF. There are flavors of everything from FF to Quik to Pac to other genres. Just cuz you love FF doesn't mean they get all the credit.


2. WTF are you talking about? Plenty of Dre adjacent artists haven't done shit. He has Snoop, Em, Kendrick. I could make an argument that each of them would have been a star either way. He tends to hop on slam dunks for the most part.

The Dre myth in hip hop is literally insane at this point. He is A LOT closer to Puffy than most want to admit. Except I think Puff would probably keep his kids housed at least.


3. That isn't to say association doesn't help- of course it does. But I am not sure how this relates to the thread at all.


Your response was incorrect and not even relevant to the thread.