The first thing you will probably say after listening to Kendrick Lamar’s, DAMN, is exactly that, “damn”. Xxlmag.com reported that within the first week of its release, the album sold over 600,000 copies. That leaves over 600,000 people saying “damn” all across the world. That number doesn’t even include the amount of people that would either listen to the album on Soundcloud, Spotify, or just pirate it.
Like all of Lamar’s albums, the hype leading up to its release was real. Most of its popularity was a result of all of the memes that were made about the album cover and name. This helped the massive amount of hype grow even greater.
Once again, Lamar struck gold with the amount of love this album received. A big part of why his following is so large is because of his lyrics. He will spit a verse and it will leave you slumping down in your seat, and as your eyes dilate, you whisper, “damn”.
DAMN features 14 total tracks. Billboard.com reported that of those 14 tracks, every single one landed on the Billboard’s Hot 100 list. This left Lamar as one of five artists to ever have 14 or more songs on the list simultaneously. Currently, Lamar has two songs within the top five. Number four being DNA with 51 millions hits. His other top five song is “Humble” at number one with 67.4 millions hits.
In the album, DAMN, you’ll see kendrick refer a lot to the black lives matter movement. A lot of these are within the stories that are told in his songs. In the song “Yah” he sings, “Fox News wanna use my name for percentage/My latest muse is my niece, she worth living’/See me on the TV and scream, ‘That’s Uncle Lamar!’/Yeah, that’s the business/Somebody tell Geraldo this ni**a got some ambition/I’m not a politician, I’m not ’bout a religion/I’m a Israelite, don’t call me Black no mo’/That word is only a color, it ain’t facts no mo.”
To completely understand every song in this album it would take time and dedication. Not everything he says makes sense at first, but everything has a meaning and you need to find what that meaning is. If you go into this album prior to hearing anything about it, all you need to know is that it is flames, so be prepared, and enjoy.
Kyle Lynch, Staff Reporter
