5. Kendrick Lamar – untitled unmastered.



For a man as restless as Kendrick Lamar, it was nice to hear him enjoy a moment. To Pimp A Butterfly was an album that dominated hip-hop’s collective conscious last year, and as a man of the people, Kendrick was willing to give us more. Free of any sort of conceptual delivery, or hype cycle, untitled unmastered. was the first time we got to think of Kendrick in terms of songs. “Untitled 02” didn’t have much to do with “Untitled 06” and so on. We got to hear the creativity of Kendrick go in every direction it could, from the sparse, and biblical, to the light and poppy. It was a joy that perhaps left a great deal of people unfulfilled, hoping to be crushed with the massive weight of something like Good Kid M.A.A.D City. But for those who could switch gears and follow where Kendrick was taking them, it presented something new and totally essential. It was lo-fi and casual, while still floating into Kendrick’s heavy discussions of race, and morality, but in a way that could be listened to with friends. untitled unmastered. is not a headphone experience, it’s joyful-soul numbers, and murky, dark bangers are meant to be played in cars and parks. Songs that play to live audiences, and social interaction. A far cry from the solitary sound of tracks like “u” and “How Much A Dollar Cost?”. Kendrick opens his sound to a place that he realizes may have missed him, and it’s just another dimension to one of hip-hop’s new greats.