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Notes -
Kendrick is an interesting cultural figure to me, in the he's a black man who self-consciously makes music for and about black people, but I associate him primarily with white fans who love his (in their view) sophisticated view of black culture. There's a weird tension there, as Immortal Technique put it:
Kendrick's also in a funny spot where the initial launch to prominence was a full court press from the establishment inclusive of a Lonely Island feature, a song where Arenas is rhymed with 'suck ma penis' and then zig-zagging wildly in terms of his 'auteur credentials' when he's well past his best work. I enjoy TPAB and GKMC, but I've also made a lot of fun of my friends who were holding him up as a unique genius and I don't think he's produced anything particularly good in years.
Also he might have effectively killed rap commercially via winning the Drake beef, credit to him for that.
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