So Kendricks album came and went without making an impact

[Real N Quotes]

He's not a rapper that can hype people up like Waka or Chief Keef
He doesn't have the shock value of a Lil B
He's doesn't have the ability to strike emotion like Lil Boosie
He's too ugly to be a ladies' rapper like Drake
He's too conscious to be a swag rapper like A$AP Rocky
He doesn't have a charismatic tone like a 50 Cent
He's a lyrical rapper who can't paint pictures like a Nas or Eminem (see Renegade)
I think the problem is that Kendrick is a jack of trades and a master of nothing.

 

[SirBiatch]

I was saying this before the album dropped but Kendrick just hasn't taken that step musically/sonically/artistically/however you wanna call it that would make his music undeniable. Like he's sort of Casey Veggies-ish where he just raps on songs but isn't really entertaining with it. You listen to a verse and assume he's killing it with his deliveries and good flows but when you listen to the lyrics you rarely get those moments when you hear a clever or witty ass line. Very little punchlines and flow switching. And his production isn't all that either.

What you've described is the definition of wack/mediocre. And Kendrick has always been that since I heard Section 80.

I love how people talk about him being positive/conscious as a gimmick. When has positivity sold shyt in rap?

cmon son. Do your homework. Arrested Development, Fugees, Lauryn Hill, Kanye West.... Speakerboxxx is either #1 or #2 highest selling rap album OF ALL TIME. You're acting like this deliberately non-gangsta genre-blurring bullshyt is new to rap. People have made serious money doing this stuff.

@KlayeCreation your question answered.

Most of you have horrible taste in music anyways. So it doesn't suprise me that TPAB goes over your heads.

You guys have the music ear of a 10 year old

Fuk outta here

Kendrick fans have horrible taste in music and most of them have a limited understanding of rap. Add to that a condescending attitude and you get annoying smart-dumb nikkas.

The people criticizing Kendrick are hip hop fans like myself, B. You really think I'm too stupid to get TPAB, but Illmatic and Supreme Clientele are my favorite albums ever?

Get a grip.

how old are you nikkas? Ya'll really believe that shyt? Kendrick is trying to play an opposing side of the (current mainstream norm) in an attempt to get people to side with his mediocre music. I dont have a problem with the angle,it's a good hustle. But it's JUST a huslte and i'm not giving extra credit for it. I can accept the fact that he's spitting a watered down weaker version of what cube & pac was spitting 25 years ago. ONLY IF he didnt try to force attach his name to pac's and act like pac is handing him some type of crown. He wants to con his way into the throne instead of earning it and i'm not buying it but i hope he get as rich as he can.

That's what I've been saying. If Kendrick fans and his team just kept it real, no one would have a problem. But when you start marketing yourself as a GOAT, it's offensive to any hip hop fan who has been around.

 

[MasterSpliffter]

He tweeted about sales! So clearly he cares about them

He said it was the TDE CEO Kendrick is not on social media like that.

 

[CrimsonTider]

negro, what kinda "impact" do y'al want it to make?

Y'all want Obama to get on TV and discuss the lyrics? You want it to be a new continental anthem for Africa? You want Rolling Stone to run a cover/feature article on it?

Y'all are knocking this album for not being in a stratosphere where even YOUR favorite album does NOT exist.

No I think you are far off. I don't even believe in albums making impacts.

Don't you see how everyone is quoting the meteoritic scores on this album and saying its the most critically acclaimed rap album of all time?

Im knocking the album for not being good. There are people propping up this album as something revolutionary when the largely of hiphop fans are not feeling it at all.

 

[UpAndComing]

Cosign...
How is being conscious a gimmick?

You got alot to learn kid

 

[Kenny West]

What you've described is the definition of wack/mediocre. And Kendrick has always been that since I heard Section 80.

No because he has his own set of strengths.

cmon son. Do your homework. Arrested Development, Fugees, Lauryn Hill, Kanye West.... Speakerboxxx is either #1 or #2 highest selling rap album OF ALL TIME. You're acting like this deliberately non-gangsta genre-blurring bullshyt is new to rap. People have made serious money doing this stuff.

I don't know if you're trying to miss the point on purpose or what but Reach to make a point brehs

Arrested Development came and went before I transitioned from pre-school to kindergarten. Fugees wasn't straight rap from the get go and lol at listing them and lauryn separately. Kanye is a reach, his music isn't positive even back in the day it was only somewhat concious. Speakerboxx/The Love Below is only close due the sound of TLA and sold off the strength of a pop record.

But even if I were to give credit to each example you only got 5 acts (really 4). In a 20+ year hip hop history full of platinum albums about selling drugs and killing nikkas. Just 5. And none of these acts made an album as blatant and intentionally problack/concious as Kendricks.

All in all there is nothing proving that Kendrick did it as a gimmick. There's nothing that proves making positive conscious music as a gimmick SELLS. In fact TPAB is proving the inverse right now. I mean the music business is still a business.

 

[B. Pumpaveli]

I don't even like GKMC. I can't name a single track on there I like. So I'm far from a Kendrick stan.

But this album is not a ride around and bump in your car album. That's primarily why ppl are knocking it.


I just fail to see this supposed "impact" the album was supposed to make. What other recent rap albums made this supposed impact? And where can I see it reflected?

Recent album that made an impact was Drakes last album/mixtape. 2 months out and its still gettin burn everywhere u go. Clubs, parties, cars etc.

 

[intilectual recipricol]

You rap fans are some fukking weirdos man... five years ago you clowns were complaining about the lack of new, young talented artists in hip-hop and screaming that "Hip-hop is dead!", now five years later you've got rappers like Kendrick, Cole, Drake, K.R.I.T., Wale, Gibbs, and a whole slew recently emerged artists dropping nothing but heat and all you weirdos can do is complain.

Who gives a fukk if the album "came and went"? Do you listen to music for your own personal enjoyment or because you want to fit in with everyone else? Some of you fukks need to smile for once and just enjoy life, not everything has to be about hating the next man. You guys are acting like dude dropped an album as bad as Nastradamus.

this post came and went

 

[SirBiatch]

I don't know if you're trying to miss the point on purpose or what but Reach to make a point brehs

Arrested Development came and went before I transitioned from pre-school to kindergarten. Fugees wasn't straight rap from the get go and lol at listing them and lauryn separately. Kanye is a reach, his music isn't positive even back in the day it was only somewhat concious. Speakerboxx/The Love Below is only close due the sound of TLA and sold off the strength of a pop record.

But even if I were to give credit to each example you only got 5 acts (really 4). In a 20+ year hip hop history full of platinum albums about selling drugs and killing nikkas. Just 5. And none of these acts made an album as blatant and intentionally problack/concious as Kendricks.

All in all there is nothing proving that Kendrick did it as a gimmick. There's nothing that proves making positive conscious music as a gimmick SELLS. In fact TPAB is proving the inverse right now. I mean the music business is still a business.

You know what's truly deserving of ? Your lack of hip hop knowledge. And it proves what we've said time and time again: Kendrick fans have a cursory knowledge of this hip hop shyt. Which is why they give Kendrick props for stuff he shouldn't be getting props for.

You asked about rappers selling positivity? I just listed the major ones that outsold gangsta rappers by a lot. I'm not even touching the minor-in-comparison acts scattered across the hip hop landscape.

Since Public Enemy/Jungle Brothers/De La/KRS kicked the 'positive' rap door open, there have been TONS of acts that have made money doing 'positive' rap (Coolio, A Tribe Called Quest, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Jurassic 5, etc). Some were amazing. Some were mediocre, and others were flat out trash.

You forget (although you probably never knew) that hip hop went through an Afrocentric phase. Counterprogramming has always existed in media. The question isn't: 'is this positive?' The real question is: 'forget the message for a sec...Is this good on its own merit?'

The same way you're saying Kanye wasn't all that conscious is the same way someone in 2025 will say "Kendrick wasn't that conscious." Again, you must have been small. I remember when Ye came out. He rode that 'I'm so conscious, not gangsta like these other guys' angle hard as hell.

You say there's nothing that proves 'conscious music' is a gimmick, yet I just listed Speakerboxxx which is either #1 or #2 highest selling rap album EVER.

The evidence is staring you right in the face.

 

[bigbadbossup2012]

It's Kendrick stans that like to compare Kendrick to Pac but the reality is their styles are completely different.

When you listen to Kendrick you don't get any resemblance of Pac outside of the pro black subject matter.

Their flows, lyricism, and most of their subject matter is completely different.

Pac was obsessed with his own mortality pretty much from the onset of his own career. Kendrick doesn't touch upon death like Pac does.

And this is one the reason why I respect Kendrick the most. Even with Stans trying to compare Kendrick to Pac, Kendricks music is still very much Kendricks. No one would ever get the two confused.

Kendrick very much has his own identity musically. Kendrick is being Kendrick, nothing more nothing less. I can only respect that

So making a faux brenda's got a baby song and pretending that you're being ordained by the legendary 2pac is "having your own identity"? lmao He's obviously looking for a light that his talent alone cant provide.

 

[23Barrettcity]

He said that it was TDE owner that did that not him. Kendrick ain't on social media like that.

Where did he say that and why should I believe that . What's he the president and doesn't have time to go on Twitter sounds fake like those oh I got hacked rappers

 

[Kenny West]

You know what's truly deserving of ? Your lack of hip hop knowledge. And it proves what we've said time and time again: Kendrick fans have a cursory knowledge of this hip hop shyt. Which is why they give Kendrick props for stuff he shouldn't be getting props for.

You asked about rappers selling positivity? I just listed the major ones that outsold gangsta rappers by a lot. I'm not even touching the minor-in-comparison acts scattered across the hip hop landscape.

Since Jungle Brothers/De La/KRS kicked the 'positive' rap door open, there have been TONS of acts that have made money doing 'positive' rap (Coolio, A Tribe Called Quest, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Jurassic 5, etc). Some were amazing. Some were mediocre, and others were flat out trash.
Counterprogramming has always existed in media. The question isn't: 'is this positive?' The real question is: 'forget the message for a sec...Is this good on its own merit?'

Your hanging your hat on this small handful of positive rappers who's career peaked when rap music was actually selling. most of the acts you named have NO fanbase present day. How can someone counter-program without a platform or following?

I guess I should have specified that I didn't mean to assert positive rap has NEVER sold anything but you gotta be a dishonest muthafukka to not acknowledge the comparative gap. So to avoid having to waste more time mincing words: Positive rap in a black sense isn't as marketable and profitable as negative rap, PERIOD.

The same way you're saying Kanye wasn't all that conscious is the same way someone in 2025 will say "Kendrick wasn't that conscious." Again, you must have been small. I remember when Ye came out. He rode that 'I'm so conscious, not gangsta like these other guys' angle hard as hell.

Bruh Kanye's music was regular guy rap, shyt was anti-gangsta but not conscious at all. Back then everyone just called it backpack rap.

You say there's nothing that proves 'conscious music' is a gimmick, yet I just listed Speakerboxxx which is either #1 or #2 highest selling rap album EVER.

The evidence is staring you right in the face.

Oh ok, so what sold that album was Big Boi's half of the project with positive music. Not the second half of the project which contains the more popular artist, mostly non-rap songs and one of the most successful rap singles of all time right? man if you don't get the fukk outta here with that bs example

 

[wire28]

the people that hate kendrick/the album seem to be the most obsessed with it. crazy how the world works

 

[SummerNights]

never heard anyone bump this anywhere

 

[jadillac]

Recent album that made an impact was Drakes last album/mixtape. 2 months out and its still gettin burn everywhere u go. Clubs, parties, cars etc.

How long til y'all realize every album is not meant for clubs or to bump in your car with the top down?