Kendrick Lamar - "Blood"

Regardless of whether or not this genre of music is your "thing" you can not deny the fact that this album is genius. It's the first non classical or jazz album to ever win the Pulitzer Prize. That is how staggering this work of incredible artistry is. Listen to it just once, and tell me you don't feel the same way. 

I can not profess to have been a huge Kendrick Lamar fan, I knew his music through his collaboration with other artists, but this heartbreaking look into what self-reflection can be, is earth shaking. 

Lamar has been branded as the "new king of hip hop" numerous times. Forbes said, on Lamar's placement as hip hop's "king", "Kendrick Lamar may or may not be the greatest rapper alive right now. He is certainly in the very short lists of artists in the conversation." Lamar frequently refers to himself as the "greatest rapper alive" and once called himself "The King of New York."

On the topic of his music genre, Lamar has said: "You really can't categorize my music, it's human music." Lamar's projects are usually concept albums. Critics found Good Kid, M.A.A.D City heavily influenced by West Coast hip hop and 90s gangsta rap. His third studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly, incorporates elements of funk, jazz, soul and spoken word poetry.

Called a "radio-friendly but overtly political rapper" by Pitchfork, Lamar has been a branded "master of storytelling" and his lyrics have been described as "katana-blade sharp" and his flow limber and dexterous. Lamar's writing usually includes references to racism, black empowerment and social injustice, being compared to a State of Union address by The Guardian. His writing has also been called "confessional" and controversial. The New York Times has called Lamar's musical style anti-flamboyant, interior and complex and labelled him as a technical rapper.

He speaks words of truth that often go unheard, but he speaks them nonetheless. He is a master of his trade, and he refuses to accept someone else's views as his own without inspecting them first. If this is what the future of Hip-Hop sounds like, count me in. 

So today, with the ground breaking beneath my feet, I choose Kendrick Lamar's "Blood" off his Pulitzer Prize winning album "Damn." as my, shake the earth when you walk, change the landscape with your desire, find a world full of pearls, song for a, I shall be the first, I shall be a star to follow, I shall burn my own path, Friday.