To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ Almost Didn’t Appear On ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’
Last month, Kendrick Lamar, along with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J Blige, and Anderson .Paak, performed at the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show. Lamar’s portion of the show was rather short, as he only played “M.A.A.D. City,” “Alright,” and a cover of “Forgot About Dre” with Eminem. One of those songs, “Alright,” has become one of Kendrick’s most impactful songs, often used during social justice protests. However, according to a recent episode of Alex Pappademas’ Spotify podcast The Big Hit Show, the song almost didn’t appear on his landmark 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly.
Sounwave, who co-produced “Alright” and other songs on the album, joined The Big Hit Show podcast to share the story behind the song. Sounwave was approached by Sam Taylor, a Sony Music executive, as he sat in a meeting that featured Pharrell playing beats for Kendrick and others. “I just remember my guy, Sam Taylor said, ‘Hey come check this one out,’” Sounwave recalled. “He takes me to another room and he plays me the skeleton of ‘Alright.’”
“And I just remember my jaw drop,” Sounwave continued. “It was just like literally just the 808s and the keys, and Pharrell had the melody of ‘We going be alright.’ And I was like, ‘Bro what is this?’ Oh my goodness, I’m freaking out. And I immediately run, I was like, ‘Dot, you have to come hear this.’”
Kendrick himself loved what he heard, but the next task was finishing the song and making sure it was a cohesive fit with the album. While completing the song was a breeze, making it fit on was difficult at first.
“It was super amazing, super fitting, sonically it was not, like no matter what we did, it just could not fit with the rest of the album,” Sounwave explained. “But we loved that record so much that I said, ‘Okay, I’m not letting this record die.’”
Thankfully, after some minor changes and some additional contributions from famed producer Terrace Martin, “Alright” found its place on To Pimp A Butterfly, and the rest is history.
You can listen to the full episode of The Big Hit Show here.
Kendrick Lamar Says ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ Came Together After A Lot Of ‘Throwing Paint At The Wall’
Kendrick Lamar’s third album, To Pimp A Butterfly, was a big change in direction from his 2012 sophomore album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. It found the rapper ditching his previous West Coast influences for a sound based on jazz, soul, funk, and more. The change wasn’t easy for him, requiring plenty of experimentation and trial and error to get it right. During an episode of Alex Pappademas’ Spotify podcast The Big Hit Show, which is studying the seminal album for its second season, Kendrick dove into how he made it work.
“Yeah I’m just trying stuff, throwing the paint on the wall and writing as these incredible musicians rock out,” he said. “I like that for eight bars. I like that. I like that. So… prior to the album actually coming out the sh*t actually sounded way more complex.”
Kendrick then explained how his longtime friend and producer Terrace Martin taught him about jazz. “Miles [Davis] is playing and you know he’s doing these skats and these rhythms. And man I said to myself, ‘I wanna be able to do that, but I wanna rap that way.’ And you know, be on that cadence and it’s super out of pocket, but you know it’s very jazz, it’s very Miles Davis influenced,” Kendrick said. “It was what I was inspired by what Terrace was telling me. He was like, ‘Man, you gotta be unapologetic. If you’re going to go there, you gotta go there.’”
The new episode arrives as Kendrick was announced as one of the headliners for Rolling Loud’s Miami festival.
You can listen to the full episode of The Big Hit Show here.
Kendrick Recalls How Trip to South Africa Influenced ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’: ‘It’s Something Bigger Than Compton’
Kendrick Lamar Collaborators Look Back on Emotional ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ Sessions: ‘I’ve Never Seen Him Like That’
Kendrick Lamar Will Be Breaking Down ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ In A New Podcast
Kendrick Lamar had a huge weekend at the Super Bowl, crushing it an all-timer halftime show performance with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, and Eminem. And while Kendrick didn’t debut the mythical new single on Sunday that we’ve all been waiting for, he did just announce a new podcast today about To Pimp A Butterfly, debuting tomorrow on Spotify.
In the second season of Spotify’s The Big Hit Show, Kendrick will be the focus of the five-part series that takes a look at the creation of the groundbreaking collision of hip-hop and jazz. “Going back into the album it was me explaining my experiences and what emotions it brought up from that experience,” he said in a trailer for the new show. “And tell them like, ‘Yo, it’s something bigger than Compton and where we from.’”
From Compton to the big stage
Join Kendrick Lamar, @rapsody, @george_clinton, and many more as they reflect on his classic studio album “To Pimp a Butterfly.”
#TheBigHitShow on @Spotify Feb 16 pic.twitter.com/gJeh0aWqoU
— Spotify Podcasts
The show is hosted by music journalist Alex Pappademas and the first season was all about the Twilight saga. If that sounds a bit off the hip-hop spectrum, it’s because the podcast is an all-encompassing look at pop culture that dubs itself “an epic journey that spans genres, mediums, and generations to explore what happens when a wildly successful piece of pop culture gets so big that it changes the world. This show is about how big hits get dreamed up, how they get made, and what happens when we make them our own.”
It’s rare to have Lamar actually be a part of interviews and media about himself. Even arguably the definitive look at Lamar, journalist Marcus J. Moore’s excellent book, The Butterfly Effect, was an unofficial biography that didn’t feature an interview with the star. The Big Hit Show on TPAB will have Lamar front and center, as well as guests like George Clinton, Rapsody, and more.
The show debuts on Wednesday, 02/16 for free on Spotify, and you can stream it here.