On one hand I love the return of the hip-hop diss and instinctively recoil from lamentations posted on social media speculating on the damage to our culture. On the other hand if the hip-hop diss is to exist in 2024 must it still incorporate stale avowals of manhood? It’s not that Kendrick Lamar is too good a writer for them, it’s that unlike the good material on Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers he doesn’t grapple with the staleness and the ugliness: in “Meet the Grahams” there’s no sense in which the wretched Aubrey Graham who should never have been born is or could be Kendrick Duckworth.
As much as I dislike Drake’s music, I give him credit for abjuring the grand postures: here at last is a dickhead of mixed race and of no special distinction except an erratic ear for samples. Young women like him because they’ve dated or been attracted to dickheads; young men like him because they recognize the dickhead in them. Kendrick Lamar meanwhile is in a grand hip-hop tradition: the storyteller with a prodigious talent for imitations and stresses. Kendrick positions himself as a member of a lineage; he looks over his shoulder and sees Rakim, Chuck D., Nas. I remember when he was conflicted.
I should’ve been praising “Espresso,” which many colleagues are willing to become the Song of the Summer.
Click on links for full reviews.
Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso (9)
Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us (8)
Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe! (8)
ILLIT – Magnetic (7)
Imagine Dragons – Eyes Closed (6)
Camila Cabello ft. Playboi Carti – I LUV IT (6)
Olivia Rodrigo – Obsessed (6)
Taylor Swift ft. Post Malone – Fortnight (5)
Hozier – Too Sweet (5)
Calvin Harris x Rag’n’Bone Man – Lovers in a Past Life (5)
Jelly Roll – Halfway to Hell (5)
Artemas – i like the way you kiss me (5)
Dasha – Austin (2)
Humanizing The Vacuum 