TPAB Turns 10

To Pimp a Butterfly. What kind of album title is that? Even after hearing the album a million times and getting the context of what that phrase means, it will never easily roll off the tongue. I don't want to write about what "to pimp a butterfly" means. Instead, I'm writing about what To Pimp a Butterfly means.

On March 6, 2015, Kendrick Lamar announced he would release an album on March 23. I was stoked. I had spent the previous couple years obsessed with good kid, m.A.A.d city. That 2012 album alone had me convinced that Kendrick was the greatest artist alive, of any genre. After getting acquainted with a couple funky promo singles, I wasn't sure what to expect on March 23. Surprise: Kendrick released it on March 15. 

The critical acclaim for this album immediately went through the roof. Kendrick himself did a handful of interviews and waited a few months before doing any live performances, but the TPAB love was everywhere. I was part of it. I was posting stuff about it on Facebook like an annoying fanboy. I wrote a small review for The Utah Statesman where I gave it a 10/10. I was onboard with all the music publications instantly declaring it the best album of the decade. A little hype never hurt anyone, right?

Here's the deal. I understand rap way more now than I did back then. Like, I honestly loved Kendrick, but I didn't love the genre for what it is. In hindsight, I can see fair reasons for people disliking TPAB. Maybe it's preachy. Maybe it's a flawed tracklist. Maybe it's too self-serious. Maybe it's too much of an "Obamacore" thing. And you don't want to hear a white college guy who reads Pitchfork sharing any of his opinions on rap. I was hyping this album like it was some culturally significant moment, and I didn't even know what I was talking about.

I mean. I was right. But, yeah.

People don't really talk about TPAB the way they used to. Perhaps there was a revived love for it at the end of the 2010s when publications were releasing their lists for the best albums of the decade. This ended up being the aggregate #1 by a longshot. But the discussion around TPAB doesn't feel the same at all. A lot of that has to do with the change of political climate over the years, and therefor cultural climate. 

There's kind of an unspoken embarrassment among The Millennial Left when it comes the Obama hype in 2008. It seemed to gradually fade with each year. It should be noted that TPAB was released in the thick of Black Lives Matter protests across the country. I definitely remember the couple of videos going around of protestors chanting the chorus of Kendrick's "Alright." The album was a soundtrack for a moment where liberalism suddenly didn't look as appealing as actual revolution. People who once endorsed Obama started questioning if he actually cared about systematic racism, but had yet to start questioning if that future could (and will) get worse. 

It seems like the narrative behind the TPAB love has become tied with the smug "Obamacore" mindset. The idea that we'll never have to worry about The American Right again if we just ignorantly dismiss them, as we're too high-minded for their childish ideals. But I personally don't think I can tie TPAB to that. It's political, for sure. But track-per-track, it's centered around Kendrick's own story. It's his experience with fame, identity, poverty, racism, the music industry, spirituality. The politics on TPAB is totally sensible. It's just that over time, it's harder to evaluate political music because it can never possibly be accurate enough. A valid take, but just a reminder: These songs are really freaking good.

I'll try not get into my old "this album is objectively great" ways. I used to tinker with that too much. I just think that even with super pessimistic hindsight, the overloaded praise for TPAB was justified. Taken at 100% face value, the album shares a personal story that could have existed any time in the last 100 years. Much of it gets pretty dark, and that's what gives the optimistic messages on the record more conviction. And I actually think I've underestimate the album's sonic qualities. This sounds amazing through your speakers in 2025. 

I think there's room for more optimism in music. I've never been an optimistic person for longer than 5 minutes. I don't think any of my moments of hope ever really came from a political figure. TPAB is just as much about black unity as it is about going through your own metamorphosis. The idea of metamorphosis comes off corny to me, but the actual possibility of it happening to me is inspiring. 

I love this album. A lot of people do. Maybe it doesn't need more acclaim. My deal is, I've often called this the best album of the last 10 years. And today is the last day I can say that.

I'm really, really not from here

I still feel awkward when people ask me where I'm from. 

I was born in Central California. I lived there for 15 years and 8 months. 

My family then moved to Idaho. I lived there for 3 years and 8 months, before serving a mission.

On my mission, I told people I was from Idaho. Until I had a companion who had lived in Idaho his whole life. He told me I couldn't tell people I was from Idaho because I only lived there for 3 years and I've never been fishing before. He didn't seem very serious when he said this. But he was correct.

LOGAN

I've lived a collective 10 years of my adult life in Logan UT. I've kinda adopted the place as "where I'm from" over the years. But there's become a contradiction in recent years. The longer I live here, the less it feels like home. 

By the time I hit 30, I found myself surrounded by peers my age who have strong reasons to live here. Coming across more people who were born and raised here, and will likely never leave their family community. I'm even still in touch with a handful of college friends from wherever the heck else in America. Many have found a spouse here; some of whom have started their own family to focus on. I myself love the scenery here. I've explored every street in town and every trailhead up the canyon. I had a few cool semesters at Utah State University, where I graduated from 8 years ago. Am I just living here because the atmosphere makes me nostalgic for the flare of my young adulthood?

Ummm... Yes. 

CALIFORNIA v IDAHO

So it's hard to say I'm from Logan. And I can't say I'm from Idaho. Should I just say I'm from California? I would, except for the fact that I don't really remember it.

I should remember it though, right? That's where I developed as a human being for over 15 years. The orchards, the freeways, being "the token Mormon kid" in every class. All unrecognizable to me.

I usually think of my life as though it never began until I turned 17. My junior year at Jerome High School in Idaho. I switched from thinking of acting as something fun I was getting into, to treating it like an art of progress. I accumulated a lot of new friends. I started going through the pivotal adolescent emotional course. I was really molding as a person for a couple years there. Does this make Jerome ID the place where I truly feel like I'm at home?

The answer is apparently a hard "no." I've had a few stints of living in Jerome as an adult, and most of that time really sucked. I mentioned earlier that I've begun feeling like I'm just a long-term tourist stuck in Logan, surrounded by homebodies. Jerome is like that times 10. If you can imagine.

To me, for any reason, I never felt like my California upbringing was important. But I tell ya what. It's apparent that I definitely didn't grow up in any place like Jerome ID or Logan UT.

NOWHERE

I don't know where I'm from because no place feels like home to me. I'm living a life where I rarely feel any sense of security. Seems like I only feel at home when I'm listening to music or spending time outside. But come to think of it, this was once something liberating for me.

When I was 17, my favorite artist was Beck. A notably weird dude from LA who built a career on refusing to be defined by a genre. Looking back, I have mixed feelings about Beck's shtick, but I believe I totally needed an artist like him in my teenage life. His music never sounded like he was from California. Honestly, he doesn't sound like he's from any particular place at all. I don't think he represented counter-culture. I think he was laughing at the idea of "cultural significance" itself. There's a world of beautiful and terrible music out there. There are millions of people from California. I learned that being from California doesn't have to mean anything. 

It's kinda ironic that I never got into the hip Californian clichés until I moved to Idaho. Stuff like getting involved in theatre, siding with leftist political ideals and loving weird music. In fact, one of my favorite bands is this old 90s band from Stockton CA. I was a kid living in Stockton in the 90s. But I never knew this band existed until I was an Idaho teenager with internet connection.

The band is Pavement, and their album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was the soundtrack to my final days of high school. As senior, I could hardly recollect my California freshman year. But as far as I was concerned, this band's rather ugly sound was a close sonic approximation to what the streets of Stockton looked like. Their song "Lions (Linden)" is even titled after the farm-town high school I briefly attended.

As a teenager, it was as though developing my own aesthetic helped me grow my own community. Perhaps having a stronger sense of self and having a reliable community around you go hand-in-hand. And when no place feels like your home, you can always at least have your self. 

I wish that was the end of this blog post.

WHERE AM I FROM?

Where am I from?

I don't know. It's become harder for me to identify myself with any place--or any thing at all--as I've gotten older. I was always under the impression that this stuff would be less dramatic with age, and yet I find it more difficult than ever. As much as I glorify my teenage era of self-discovery, that progression was definitely cut short. An incomplete development, despite doing things that were supposed to make me my own man, like serving a mission and going to college and working fulltime jobs. 

The fact that my first 17 years feel irrelevant to my life might be a thing. Like maybe there's some inner-child stuff to work on there. Like maybe I was always a tight-wound sensitive boy and maybe that boy never went away and I hate that boy, but you didn't hear that from me.

Anyways... I live in Logan, but I'm really, really not from here. There's no real place or thing that makes me feel at home, or in touch with myself. Not for longer than a few minutes, anyways. At some point, I can't lean on my locale or my music taste or my past highlights to define who I am. I think I have to begin some things that are much harder to begin than anything I've ever begun before. 

So I'll tell you where I'm from when I get there.