Later, the TDE linchpin teams up with fellow Black Hippy soldier Jay Rock on ‘untitled 05 ’, trading bars over a floaty, downtempo west coast jazz number underpinned by crushing snares that flow like a chopped ‘n’ screwed take on the famous ‘Amen’ break. Served up on a naggingly bouncy, J Dilla-like platter of bubbly funk, it’s this album’s own ‘King Kunta’ moment. ‘untitled 03 ’, meanwhile, deftly weaves a stinging critique of shady record industry politics – a long-running theme in rap ever since its old school pioneers were roundly ripped off (famously crystallised in Q-Tip’s famous “Industry Rule #4080” barb) – into a much wider analysis of the way race and capitalism interact in America, examining property, wealth and more from the perspective of different ethnic groups.
Such biblical imagery continues on ‘untitled 02 ’, which finds Kendrick “stuck in the belly of the beast”, seeing discarded Styrofoam lean cups strewn everywhere and demanding: “Get God on the phone… My hood going (b)razy/Where did we go wrong?” As an ominous synth dips in and out of the beat, and a swirling Coltrane-esque sax punches through the words towards the end, it’s both sonically and thematically a close relation to ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’. Redolent of the grimy, lo-fi masterpieces of ‘Enter The Wu-Tang’-era RZA, it forms a fitting backdrop for Kendrick’s relentless raps, which sketch out a modern-day LA apocalypse: “No birds chirping or flying, no dogs barking/We all nervous and crying, moving in caution/In disbelief our beliefs the reason for all this/The tallest building plummet, cracking and crumbling/The ground is shaking/The smell is disgusting, the heat is unbearable…” (Words which, it should be noted, are also not too dissimilar to the survivalist ghetto operas of the Wu in their all-conquering ‘90s pomp).
The opening cut, ‘untitled 01 ’ (there are no song titles here, just the track number with a date presumably indicating when it was written or recorded) sets things off at a frenetic pace, as a pounding uptempo drumbeat and double-bass rhythm are matched with a simple piano loop and eerie synths. From the start, this direct approach catches the listener off guard.
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