Finally given the range and opportunities of the studio, Kendrick made Section.80 as the optimum version of what he had been doing on his mixtapes. The thoughtfulness and skill is all there, the combination of jazz and soul samples, and the themes of his first studio album mirror much of Overly Dedicated. Here Kendrick pictures his section of Compton and the inhabitants of it, full of chemical dependency and a culture now still effected and damaged by the policies of Ronald Reagan.
But Section.80 is more focused than any project came before it, a concept album involving two women – Tammy and Keisha – damaged by the system a deep voiced narrator whose campfire, and of course Kendrick himself. Sometimes it is almost too much, and two or three of the songs could have been taken out to make the narrative more apparent. Kendrick would go on to refine these narrative concepts throughout his next two albums, but the sprawling nature perfectly reflects the directionless nature of its characters. Two songs are named as Chapters, but in reality Section.80 is more like a collection of short stories, intersecting and splitting apart as Kendrick sees fit, separate but finding solace with each other.
The music is also more adventurous, but maintains a consistency from his mixtapes. There are the soul and jazz melodies that were always there and relate back to his inspirations – this is probably the album that sounds most influenced by his idol Tupac in style and in spirit, though it wouldn’t be the last time – but these beats are way more mellow, melodic or electronic than many of his West Coast forbearers. The hooks can be less adventurous than the beats, but the music on the album is overall so great that it cancels each other out. But another big influence on this album was one that came out the prior year, that of Kanye West’s opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. This ends given the album a lot of inspiration and can occasionally be distracting; the worst beat on the album seems to be a conscious decision to replicate the lush soul samples of Mr West. But regardless the beats and samples – with the exception of the lighter moments – all serve to enhance the lyrical qualities of Kendrick, a 23 year old man wise above his years with buckets of empathy and a lot to say.
The pointedly titled “Fuck Your Ethnicity” gives us a indication of what we are in for in this album, and not just because it is introduced by the deep voiced narrator who in turn greets us to Tammy and Keisha. The jazzy pianos and soulful hook are a great taste of Section.80’s aesthetic, and through his lyrics Kendrick talks about the unifying power of music, the varying cultures of his audience and also mentions his “HiiPower” movement that will make its most prominent appearance in this album’s conclusion. The lyrics do not add to the narrative, but it sure lets us know the assured but thoughtful point of view.
“Hol’ Up”…less so. If I had to guess what song was probably the result of studio notes, it would be this one. This version of Kendrick Lamar has never been my favourite as it doesn’t seem to fit the rest of his character (see Fuckin’ Problems for more), but even in something as lightweight as this the trumpet sample is incredibly smooth. And even in a song about the sex fantasies of the Mile High Club, he still has some utter gems of lyrics that other M.C’s wouldn’t put the effort into for tracks like this (see below):
Fuck your Ethnicity: “What the fuck is you fighting for? Ain’t nobody gon’ win that war/My details be retail, man, I got so much in store”
Hol’ Up: “Wicked as 80 reverends in a pool of fire with devils holding hands/From a distance, don’t know which one is a Christian, damn/Who can I trust in 2012? There’s no one, not even myself/A Gemini screaming for help, somebody”
But this moves on to the song that acts as the lyrical and ethical base for the rest of the album to come, and probably the first Kendrick classics in A.D.H.D. Sounwave’s choice of sample – “The Knight Hawk”.by the The Jet Age of Tomorrow – is inspired, the spacious cloud synthesiser perfect for the drugged-fuelled narrative to follow. Through this gaseous environment spits out bars relating to the lack of attention of his generation, with the A.D.H.D in question the result of the prevalence of drugs in multiple (“got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist”). “You know why we crack babies?/Because we born in the ’80s, that A.D.H.D. crazy” sums it all up beautifully. Also it was really cool to play as Frank in GTAV and crash in slow motion to this tune. This doesn’t add anything; I just felt the need to include it. “You know why we crack babies?/Because we born in the ’80s, that A.D.H.D. crazy”.
Whilst “A.D.H.D” is one of the strongest samples on the album, “No Makeup (Her Pains)” is without question the weakest. It really doesn’t fit with the tone of the rest of Section.80, and with the “Ladies and Gentleman!” exclamations from “Runaway” it is pretty distracting in how much it is trying to be like a Kanye West beat. It distracts a little from the story, which in first instances seems to be a simple “you don’t need makeup; your beautiful just the way you are” song (which, you know, she can wear whatever she wants). But as it goes on it becomes clear with the final line of the woman’s verse – and the revelations later – that the male is from the point of view of a client, and her makeup is a means to hide abuse. This won’t be the last time Keisha’s story will just bum you out.
A.D.H.D: “I hope that take the pain away from the feelin’ that he felt today/You know, when you part of Section 8/And you feel like no one can relate”
No Makeup (Her Pains): (From him is where I get it from, they tell me I need to)/Smile (at least once in a while)/(I hate my lips, my nose, my) eyebrows/(It’s the beauty in me, but what he don’t see)/(Is that I had a black ey-)”
We are introduced to the second woman of this narrative from a beat that sounds like someone is playing an Atari in a witch’s cauldron. “Tammy’s Song (Her Evils)” is actually the story of two women, both of whom find out that their partners have been unfaithful and upon finding this out the find solace in each other. Dyke-pun aside, it is a dark but ultimately empathetic tale of vulnerable people, and it cleverly uses the hook from “Down 4 My Niggaz” to show the deteriorating status of these relationships.
“Chapter Six” is a very chilled out soul beat that ultimately serves as the segue into the next song, but in the Eminem-inflected bridge points out the anxieties of kids living in the rougher areas of Compton (this wouldn’t be the first time he would do this). By contrast, “Ronald Reagan Era” and the beat from “Tae Beast” goes hard. The organ, pumping sub bass and great swinging intro from Ash Riser, verses act as predominately a brag rap (particularly in the first verse) with some mighty fine rhymes . But throughout the narrative – and especially in the Bridge – he shows this as a means to survive in the rougher streets of Compton, and that the environment was bred from the policies of the Reagan Era.
Tammy’s Song (Her Evils): Until one day he wasn’t acting right in the middle of the night/She checked his pockets, found condoms by Magnum/And the moment they was acknowledged, she popped his eye/Then ran outside, then started driving on the passenger side
Chapter Six: Ridin’ with them boys and girls and we’re high/All we want to do is have a good time/Young, wild, and reckless is how we live life/Pray that we make it to twenty-one (One, one, one)
Ronald Reagan Era: “Can’t detour when you’re at war with your city, why run for?/Just ride with me, just die with me, that gun store, right there/When you fight, don’t fight fair cause you’ll never win, yeah”
“Poe Man Dreams (His Vice)” returns to a chiller sound (if the “smoke good, eat good, live good” wasn’t enough indication). With the culmination of the beat and style this song is closest to West Coast rap icons like Snoop Dogg and Tupac. Of course the Poe in question is also a clear annunciation of “poor”, and in the midst of these influences Kendrick right some great lyrics that as well as talking about more of the drug vices of the environment also talks about his own rise into the industry with a tale actually shows the troubles and struggle he had to go through to get there (Drake!)
When I mentioned before that sometimes the beat overcompensates for the weak hook, I was primarily thinking of “Spiteful Chant”. I get why a song with this title would have a line like “I’m going big, suck my dick” and “Too many niggas, not enough hoes, And some of you niggas, acting like hoes”, but that doesn’t stop them from a being weak. Fortunately that epic horn and drums (sampled by “Iron” by the great Woodkid) makes up for it, and Kendrick does make up for the hook in the verses – as does the guestspot from fellow Black Hippy Schoolboy Q, whose rhymes aren’t as complex but comes through with a great flow and a strong ending – even if it is ultimately another brag rap.
Poe Man Dreams: “You think about it, and don’t call me lyrical/Cause really I’m just a nigga that’s evil and spiritual/I know some rappers using big words to make their similes curve/My simplest shit be more pivotal”
Spiteful Chant: “Everybody heard that I fuck with Dre/And they wanna tell me, I made it/Nigga I ain’t made shit, if he gave me a handout/I’mma take his wrist and break it”
“Chapter Ten” is another short interlude that still acts to the wider context, not just with the narrator returning us to the Narrator and the two women, but with the quick verse that sums up both the sense of disconnect of the generation both from those around them and from each other. This moves into what the most is emotionally affecting song on the whole album, “Keisha’s Song (Her Pain)”. Ash Rider’s (“Ashtrorobot”) hook first leads you to think otherwise, with a sweeping look of fancy girls with fancy cars. But this soon contrasts with the actual contents of the album, that of a seventeen year old girl who experiences the harshest of Compton realities. With vivid detail the abusiveness of her pimp, the police abusing their power to get free sexual favours or else arresting her, and her home life where she was sexually abused from the age of nine. It is a truly affecting and unbelievably sad song, saved from being unbearable with the gorgeous Alan Parson’s sample. It’s message resembles that of “Brenda’s Got a Baby”; I don’t know where I got that idea.
The last song was so powerful it makes the move to “Rigamortus” pretty jarring. But fortunately it makes up for that by being another great track, one whose sparse horn sample was hard to initially warm to, but after a couple of listens perfectly complements the complicated bars that Kendrick casts out one by one. Like “The Heart Pt.2” the flow is so fast and continuous that you can his voice get noticeably higher as he just keeps carrying on. The combination of his voice, the horn, the sub bass and drums are a kind of ordered chaos, one in which Kendrick spits so many great lines about death. Of all the brag raps in Section.80 this is without doubt the best, and with the exception of his verse on “Control” so good that he wouldn’t really need to do anymore to prove a point.
Chapter 10: “Everyday that I wake up, I’mma sin again/I’m not a citizen, I’m just a nigga from Section.80″
Keisha’s Song (Her Pain): “Nothing really matters, so she hit the back seat/Cause Rosa Parks never a factor when she topping off police”
Rigamortus: *Picking one seems foolish*
“Kush and Corinthians” returns to the subject of drugs, one which the narrator contemplates the place of both his vices and his spirituality. It is a calming piece of smooth funk with a high bass line and some very atmospheric drums, ones which combines the smoky nature of “A.D.H.D” with the jazzier elements to come. Kendrick has two good verses here, but I think this is the song on the album in which the guest verse might just be better (mostly because this is one of Kendrick’s quieter and more detached verses). That comes from BJ the Chicago Kid, whose great voice marks a noticeable contrast, and is perfect for both topics of sensuality and spirituality.
The next song, “Blow My High”, is said to be a tribute to R&B star Aaliyah, and samples “Big Pimpin’” the Jay Z song in which she features. Like “Cut You Off” it is a song about cutting out the negativity from your life, but here it is more about the posers that have clung to Kendrick in light of his fame. It is a good song, but would be explored again with a Kendrick Lamar classic in the next album, and with “Hol’ My High” and “The Spiteful Chant” could have been taken out of Section.80 and it would have been stronger as a result.
Kush and Corinthians: “But why must we retaliate? Is it human nature? I don’t know/I look for the answers later, make a right, there they go”
Blow My High (Members Only): “Ain’t nothing gonna happen soon for y’all/While I’m here and every day I hear/Your bullshit, self-pity/Reason why you never dealt with me/Reason why your girl dealt with me”
The flowing narrative of the album moves to its end with another album highlight, but this one doesn’t come from Kendrick Lamar. This is calculated of course, as the song is called “Ab-Soul Outro”, and is a showcase for the fellow Black Hippy and Top Dawg Entertainment member to show his skills. And indeed he does, so much show that in the course of his poetic verse the Abstract Asshole manages to bring up every theme of generational direction, prisons, sex, ethnicity, drugs and HiiPower all one on top of each other. That doesn’t mean Kendrick Lamar doesn’t also have a good verse, in which he talks about talking about multiple topic, and together they show why they are the two most talented in their collective (Ab-Soul would follow this with his own album Control System, which might have been the best rap album of the year if it wasn’t for, well, Kendrick’s) But the biggest star might just be producer Terrence Martin, who plays the saxophone in the background like a goddamn master, and whose choice of drums and instrumentation would be a precursor of the beat to come two albums later.
Kendrick ends the album by returning to the subject of “HiiPoWer”. A self-created movement of enlightenment from work and reflection, Kendrick uses those ideas to end Section.80 with another highlight. This was produced by fellow rapper J.Cole, an artist that Kendrick has mutual respect for, and the staccato synth lines and electric piano make a beat among the best of his own creations (which also samples Kanye West’s “So Appalled” from MBDTF). It perfectly matches Kendrick’s mood, both contemplative and forceful, and that in turn is counteracted by the beautiful tones of the sadly deceased singer Alori Joh. Kendrick moves from topics ranging from racial profiling, to conspiracies, to the toxic atmosphere of Hollywood and his own possible death, all of which adds to his plea to “So get up off that slave ship/Build your own pyramids, write your own hieroglyphs”. After all the darkness of the streets of Compton, this coda pleads for society to move from its destruction and create their own meaning.
Ab Souls Outro: “And everybody tripping off 2012/And the extraterrestrial presence as well (Odd Future’s aight)/But our future is not, that Martial law shit dropped, we gonna all get got”
HiiPoWer: “Frightening, so fucking frightening/Enough to drive a man insane, a woman insane/The reason Lauryn Hill don’t sing, or Kurt Cobain/Loaded that clip and then said bang”
Section.80 is not consistent as his next two entries, but is also a fabulous album in its own right regardless of what came afterward. Among the other the other things that makes this album great – Kendrick’s verse, his flow, most of the beats, the conceptual ideas and varieties of emotion – I can’t really imagine another rapper of his generation choosing to build a narrative based around the struggles of women (even if the use of “hoes” and “bitches” do complicate things a bit). And in a sixty minute narrative never bores – even if some songs could be cut – and produces some modern classic hip hop tunes along the way. But within the space of a year, Kendrick had already built upon the ideas and experience he had gained from the studio, and was ready to make his big label debut. With the help of one Dr. Dre, he was going to explore more of his mad city…
What did you think, though?
Kendrick Lamar Rankings
- Section.80
- (O)verly (D)edicated