A pair of verses juxtaposing Kendrick and his childhood homie’s perspectives at a BET awards show drive home one of the central themes of To Pimp a Butterfly: the tension between the Compton upbringing he is leaving behind and the survivor’s guilt that won’t allow to fully escape. The track features the album’s highest-wattage guest spot, an all-too-brief turn from Snoop Dogg delivering the moral of the story ("You can take your boy out the hood, but you can't take the hood out the homie”).
Best bit: “I’m trapped inside the ghetto and I ain't proud to admit it/Institutionalized, I keep runnin' back for a visit”
Overall score: 7.32 High score: 10 (supaspaz, Tom Vercetti, Venus, MP2K, Blueberry Mary, wesleywalrus)
Low score: 3 (Bloomers, holocene)
On an album full of massive pop choruses, the biggest and most booming might belong to this cry of comfort for a distraught lover, which stacks a thwacking drum machine, a blast of synths and an urgent refrain into an exhilarating wall of sound. It’s one of two collaborations with Sia on Emotion, which some rate participants took particular umbrage with.
Best bit: the chorus after the middle eight, which pulls apart its many pieces before throwing them back together
Have fun&SK better lose some more...
