When talking about the highlights of 2011 in hip-hop, consensus is reached when Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 gets mentioned. The young and charismatic personality from Compton, California is the new “talk of the town“ on the west coast rap scene and even beyond the state's borders. Compton has always been well-stocked whereas famous rappers like Dr. Dre, DJ Quik, The Game or MC Eiht all claim this place their origin, but while all of them are associated with filigreed and explicit gangsterisms, Kendrick is one of the first rappers raising from this Los Angeles district who is boasting with sharp sense, bright creativity and a relentless analysis of today's young generation. Moreover his delivery provides a great variety of style and is on point, whether it comes to speed and technique as on the rattling, brass-sampled “Rigamortus” or to cool and witty raps (“Blow My High”).
Opening up the album by presenting the emblematic personas of today's 80's-born woman who he calls Keisha and Tammy and who will be mentioned throughout the album, he sets the plot at a bonfire surrounded by wisdom and revolution hungry people. Indeed, “F*ck Your Ethnicity” sets the right tone for what's coming after. He once said he wrote this song after recognizing so many different ethnicities at his shows, what told him he was not speaking just for one race but for a whole generation – section 80. Young women of today are showcased on “Tammy's Song (Her Evil)” and “Keisha's Song (Her Pain)” with a shockingly meaningful story of a rape murder and sexual abuse ('And you can blame it on her mother for letting her boyfriend slide candy under her cover / Ten months before she was ten he moved in and that's when he touched her') and a Springsteen-esque chorus line. But especially the third song dedicated to this topic, “No Make-Up (Her Vice)”, emphasizes today's imagery and reality of a lot of females. The very catchy chorus greatly paves the way for Kendrick's morally chanting 'You ain't gotta get drunk to have fun' footnote. The male perspective is revealed on a confessing “Poe Man's Dreams (His Vice)”, the thoughtful and gritty “Kush & Corinthians (His Pain)” and on “Ronald Reagan Era (His Evil)” on which he subliminally accuses the former president's drug and minority policy, explaining that this was a big factor in the creation of the “80's babies”. The same topic gets discussed on “A.D.H.D.”, an ode to the young generation and their problems, where Kendrick shows all his lyrical talent as well as a superb flow. In those parts he seems like a modern-day Tupac, full of visions and with a clear view on his environment and its causers.
He proves that, above all, on the album's lead single, the J. Cole produced “HiiiPoWeR”. That's what he calls the movement he's envisioning to be shared by the 80's~ born generation and he once again reflects it's characteristics and its reason to stand up against the system 'Every day we fight the system, never liked the system'. He sees himself as the speaker of those people 'visions of Martin Luther starin' at me / Malcolm X put a hex on my future'.
Even the interludes find justification to be on this record as they lissomly (“Chapter Six”) and off-beat yet funky (“Chapter 10”) contribute to the album's plot, both lyrically and musically: 'Riding with them boys and girls and we're high / Only work to do is have a good time / Young, wild and reckless is how we live life / Praying we make it to twenty-one'.
If you still think Kendrick Lamar is just another one of those ordinary braggadocio rappers, then he will simply shut your mouth on the sophisticated and jazzy Terrace Martin production “Ab-Soul's Outro” on which you can hear one of Ab-Soul's best verses to date. Kendrick outlines what distinguishes him from the regular rapper: 'I'm not the next pop star / I'm not the next socially aware rapper / I am a human motherfucking being, over dope ass instrumentation - Kendrick Lamar'. And that is the main reason why Section.80 is outstanding.
- 9.0/10
