Whatever the conversation is in hip-hop this week, it'll be dominated by Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly. Even though it has almost as much live instrumentation as a Roots album, the epic project also manages to incorporate a ton of samples that pull from past eras of music.
Taking similar stylistic cues from the artists that informed D'angelo's Black Messiah (Parliament/Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, Miles Davis, Prince), Kendrick crafted an album that's more in-touch with music history than most rap projects, and his production team is the main reason for that. Read on to get a better sense of the musical DNA of To Pimp A Butterfly.
(Note: "i" was already included in a past edition, so it's not here)
Item #1
Item #1
After the scene-setting sound of a needle hitting a record, the album begins with a sample from the soundtrack of a 1973 blaxploitation film called "Every N*gger Is A Star."
After "Wesley's Theory," we get a jazzy interlude that apparently consists of all-live instrumentation, and then it's "King Kunta." All of the samples credited her are lyrical interpolations, from "Annie, are you okay?" (Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal") to "I can dig rappin'" (James Brown's "The Payback") to "We want the funk!" (Ahmad's "We Want The Funk") to "I was gonna kill a couple rappers, but they did it to themselves" (Jay Z's "Thank You"). But the most identical-sounding forebear isn't credited, as parts of it may have been replayed by live musicians in order to avoid direct sampling. Take a listen to Mausberg & DJ Quik's "Get Nekkid" below, and tell me there are no similarities (especially in the bassline).
Relevnt.b/sde_LP
After "Institutionalized" interpolates a lyric from The Comrads' "Homeboyz" ("You can take a boy out the hood, but you can't take the hood out the homie"), we get a long stretch of songs containing no samples, but that ends with "Momma." That song is based around a previously-released beat by Knxwledge, entitled "So[rt]." Released as part of his Relevnt.b/sde_LP in 2013, you can hear the track in a 2013 DJ mix of his below, at the 16:40 mark.
"Hood Politics" is next, and it becomes the second prominent rap track this year to sample from indie artist Sufjan Stevens' 2010 opus Age Of Adz (with the other track in question belonging to an even more unlikely artist, Uncle Murda). This time, it's Steven's "All For Myself" that supplies haunting backing vocals on the track.
Item #3
After "Complexion (A Zulu Love) interpolates a line from Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah!! Got You All In Check," "Mortal Man" closes things out with a pair of dope samples. The first is of the drums from Houston Person's cover of Fela Kuti's "I No Get Eye For Back."
Then Kendrick samples audio from a 1994 interview with Tupac on a Swedish radio station, creating a crazy effect where it seems like he's interviewing the late legend. Check out the original audio below.
