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Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’: 10 Key Collaboratorsīut the music isn’t the most challenging thing about the album: the lyrics are pre-occupied with race and personal identity in ways that are decidedly uncomfortable to mixed company. Instead the album relies heavily on outliers like Flying Lotus, bass virtuoso Thundercat, Taz Arnold, frequent co-conspirator Terrace Martin, and Lamar’s Top Dawg in-house go-tos Sounwave and Tae Beast. The closest thing would be the Pharrell Williams- co-produced “Alright,” which showcases what passes for optimism during this dense and involved 80-minute listen: “My knees getting’ weak and my gun might blow / But we gon’ be alright.” Aside from Drake collaborator Boi-1da, Williams is the lone brand-name producer on To Pimp a Butterfly. There’s hardly a concession to radio sensibilities to be found anywhere. The result is all over the place and in one place, at the same time. Because of that, he’s also less readily digestible, mixing hood braggadocio, Black dysfunction, personal demons, spiritual yearning, mediations on fame with James Brown’s stomp, Sly Stone’s riot, a layered and stripped version of George Clinton’s mothership funk, loose free-form jazz and muscular, languid soul. Lamar is no longer primarily concerned with his own narrative, as he was on good kid, m.A.A.d city. It’s definitely more timely, speaking to the continued discussion of race and racism in America - the matter of Black lives mattering - that has dominated the national discourse over the past half year.