#i’ma just change the tag to this from now so i don’t gotta TYPE IT OUT idk what i was thinking the first time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

indiedanyai · 5 years

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85 questions tag

i was tagged by @airysunfierymoon **so so sorry this is hella late**

Last

1. Drink - Dr. Pepper

2. Phone call - My mom

3. Text message - My mom

4. Song you listened to - Scuse Me - Lizzo

5. Time you cried - A few days ago. Overwhelming thoughts

Ever

6. Dated someone twice - Never (kinda have to date first to have that chance)

7. Kissed someone and regretted it - Nope

8. Been cheated on - Nah fam

9. Lost someone special - Yes.

10. Been depressed - Yeah

11. Gotten drunk and threw up - Yeppppppp.

Fave colors

12. Mint green.

13. Coral.

14. Burnt orange.

In the last year have you…

15. Made new friends - Yes.

16. Fallen out of love - No.

17. Laughed until you cried - Yes.

18. Found out someone was talking about you - No.

19. Met someone who changed you - No.

20. Found out who your friends are - Nope.

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook friends list - Ha! No

General

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know irl - At least half to two-thirds

23. Do you have any pets - Sadly no

24. Do you want to change your name - No.

25. What did you do for your last birthday - Nothing really. Got sick...

26. What time did you wake up today - 6-7 ish

27. What were you doing @ midnight last night - Playing a game on my phone/falling asleep

28. What is something you can’t wait for - Fall. Halloween. The semester to end.

30. What are you listening to right now - Lizzo’s new album. Solange is next (I’m very behind)

31. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom - Yes. Had a friend named Tom too

32. Something that gets on my nerves - When I touch knobs or handles and discover they’re wet. vvvvvvv annoying and gross

33. Most visited website - My college site

34. Hair color: dark brown.

35. Hair long or short - Shoulder length when stretched

36. Do you have a crush on someone - Not a realistic crush anyway

37. What do you like about yourself - My hands and my hair

38. Want any piercings - Yes! Ears first, then I’ll see about all those other piercings I’ve fantasized about

39. Blood type - A (I believe)

40. Nicknames - Bunny (family nickname), Angie (only used by my play sisters), Munchkin, Angel Bun/Angel (which I now spell Anjel because of my name spelling)

41. Relationship status - Single and trying to actually live life

42. Zodiac - Pisces

43. Pronounce - She / Her

44. Fave TV shows - Don’t really watch tv except for news in the morning but over break I’ve binged a little each of The Mindy Project, Pen15, & The Mindy Project. I lowkey miss People of Earth and 2 Broke Girls

45. Tattoos - I don’t have any.

46. Right or left handed - Right.

47. Ever had surgery - Luckily no

48. piercings - None whatsoever but I’ma change that

49. Sports - I suppose Marching Band doesn’t count but it should

50. Vacations - Good in general

51. Trainers - uhhh...?

More general

52. Eating - I’m about to tear into some chicken and veggies I slow cooked

53. Drinking - Can’t have alcohol but I just had some water

54. I’m about to - Add this to the queue and do some research for a speech topic

55. Waiting - Waiting to begin packing for the move

56. Want - I want to go on adventures and be out on the town freely

57. Get married - One day maybe?

58. Career - Elementary Teacher

Which is better

59. Hugs or kisses - Hugs I suppose

60. Lips or eyes - Both

61. Shorter or taller - Taller. I’m 5′1 y’all

62. Older or younger - Not sure

63. Nice stomach or stomach - nice stomach or ..stomach? WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN???????? WHATS WRONG WITH CHUB CHUB?

64. Hookup or relationship - Again, unsure but leaning towards relationship

65. Troublemaker or hesitant - In between

Have you ever

66. Kissed a stranger - No.

67. Drank hard liquor - Nope

68. Lost glasses - Yes. It’s the worst.

69. Turned someone down - Yes.

70. Sex on first date - Gotta have a date in the first place

71. Broken someone’s heart - Doubt it, but it’s possible...

72. Had your heart broken - No

73. Been arrested - Nope.

74. Cried when someone died - Yep.

75. Fallen for a friend - Yeah

Do you believe in

76. Yourself - It’s a work in progress

77. Miracles - Yeeee

78. Love at first sight - Not entirely

79. Santa Claus - Yeah no. That bubble was popped long ago but my mom will still put santa as from on gifts

80. Kiss on first date - Maybe, it depends

81. Angels - Yes.

Other

82. Best friend’s name - Finn/Anna (hey, multiple besties is a thing)

83. Eye color - dark brown

84. Fave movie - I can’t decide

85. Favorite actor - Wow...unfair question. I have too many faves

i tag: whomever wants to do this. Just tag me so I can see your responses.

#mumbling #mun tag #can we queue higher

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bradleyhartsell · 6 years

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What’s God For?

Kendrick Lamar- DAMN. 2017 (32nd of Top 100)

When Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015, critics and fans alike lauded it as a generational monument. The consensus record of the year became a voice for blackness in America. The album did so as it tracked through Kendrick emotionally bottoming out after his breakout debut, until finding a sort of redemption after visiting Africa. Though vastly different sonically, the record’s movement from dark to light is akin to good kid, M.A.A.D. City, which was comparatively much smaller-focused (centered on his gang-affiliated teenage years, then finding Jesus after their homie gets shot, thus reflecting on his complicated but essential relationship to his hometown of Compton). These were albums documenting a hero’s journey.

Enter DAMN., Kendrick’s most compelling album. Being almost a half-hour shorter than the previous two LPs, DAMN. feels much more confined, which helps underline the darkness rooted in it. The pathos of DAMN. certainly feel surprising, as it’s hard not to project being the black advocate, voice of a generation onto Kendrick, especially with the imagined positive reinforcement he would’ve received in light of To Pimp a Butterfly’s unequivocal success. But Kendrick is prescient with how he ends that album, which brings in a lot more ambiguity than we might remember because of how empowering the album’s second half becomes (post-Africa, narratively speaking); “Mortal Man” closes the record with Kendrick speaking to Tupac, only for Pac—Kendrick’s spiritual compass—to suddenly disappear: “Pac? Pac? Pac?!” If there’s a hint of something being lost, the world’s realities over the ensuing two years inform this dejected incarnation of Kendrick Lamar.

“BLOOD.” opens the record with a ghostly Bēkon, who acts almost like an ominous Greek chorus throughout the album, asking, “Is it wickedness?” This question is followed by a pregnant pause, then, “Is it weakness?” A sturdy bass strolls over a warped and chilled cinematic score, like a haunted 45, as Kendrick recalls his offering to help a blind woman who’s dropped something. Oh yes, you have lost something…You’ve lost…your life. She shoots him, and he spends the next 53 minutes trying to process being angry, confused, frustrated, longing, and self-righteous, all to see the closer “DUCKWORTH.” reverse itself and reintroduce us to Kendrick from “BLOOD.”: “So I was takin’ a walk the other day.”

Placing revolutionary hope in To Pimp a Butterfly is naïve and idealistic, sure, but what’s happened since its release—I mean, could things have gone any worse? A longtime punch line ascends to the most powerful position on Earth? Racism and misogyny are more belligerent than ever. It’s surreal for an American of a certain type, much less to one of the most socially aware and important artists in the world today. DAMN. reflects so much of that.

The 2017 record is so raw and so stilly produced, it harnesses the most captivating side of Kendrick. He returns to the bass-and-drum-forward sound, minimally lined with cracked and spectral flecks of soul, R&B, and ‘90s West Coast hip-hop that he so deftly used on good kid. This style has a two-pronged effect: the first being stripped-back beats are deferential and allow the best pure rapper alive to demonstrate his virtuosity. That hollowed-out ‘90s West Coast sound on “DNA.” gets subsumed by Kendrick, who rides the swaggering, bouncy groove into a dazzling bar: “I know murder, conviction / Burners, boosters, burglars, ballers, dead, redemption / Scholars, fathers dead with kids and / I wish I was fed forgiveness.” Elsewhere, “FEEL.” has a spaced-out, fluid, and slippery beat that sounds like mercury pulsing over light hi-hat shuffles as Kendrick expertly spits all of his perceived slights (“Look, I feel heartless, often off this / Feelin' of fallin', of fallin' apart with / Darkest hours, lost it / Fillin' the void of bein' employed with ballin'”). Suddenly, the song boils over and Kendrick goes aggro, “Fuck your feelings, I mean this for imposters.” It sends chills down my spine every time.

The second of the production’s two-pronged effect is how jarringly (and fittingly) empty the space feels when Kendrick sounds withdrawn. The best song here, “YAH.,” has a sound similar to “FEEL.,” with its sauntering, lava lamp beat that is continuously fascinating as Kendrick slides in and out of the groove brilliantly; the incisive, drilling Kendrick of “FEEL.” is replaced with a casual, seemingly stoned Kendick: “I got so many theories and suspicions / I’m diagnosed with real n**** conditions.” It’s a mesmerizing shade of Kendrick, sounding like him at his most natural, which is apt given his removed and philosophical public persona. Just as poignant is his seemingly complicated relationship with religion, which “YAH.” begins addressing three songs into DAMN.: “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'.” The skit on “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” shares Kendrick (and his homies) being led to the redemption of Jesus Christ; five years later, on “YAH.,” he casts aside religion, almost audaciously, in order to transcend limiting racial labels. In the next line, Kendrick relays the thesis of the album, and he does so placidly, because, on this circular album, he’s already made peace with his understanding, or more likely, because he’s resigned to the world’s fate: “My cousin called, my cousin Carl Duckworth / Said know my worth / And Deuteronomy say that we all been cursed / I know he walks the Earth.”

This call from Carl is tagged onto the end of “FEAR.,” which reaffirms both the centrality of the reveal in “YAH.” and the interlocked-nature of the album. In fact, this documenting of a cursed world pervades throughout DAMN. The very first words on the album by Bēkon are likely wondering about the origin of these curses; the meditative song takes a turn when the blind woman guns down Kendrick. Then, the last third of “DNA.” switches from a throwback West Coast vibe to a scratched-up trap beat that shows Kendrick at his most aggressive (“Tell me when destruction gonna be my fate / Gonna be your fate, gonna be our faith / Peace to the world, let it rotate / Sex, money, murder—our DNA”), while the final movement of “ELEMENT.” slogs to half-time, incongruent with Kid Capri’s hype-man praise and Kendrick’s braggadocio (“If I gotta slap a pussy-ass n****, I’ma make it look sexy”). Given the chest-puffed-out beat and the trickling piano in the chorus lending the boastful Kendrick his purported elegance, when the beat slows at the end and he says, “They won’t take me out my element,” he sounds exactly that—out of his element. That is this stricken man’s lot in this cursed world, the one who continually reminds us that “Ain’t nobody prayin’ for me.”

DAMN. is made even more interesting with three seeming outliers, which are actually just as weighted down by some looming burden. The first is “Loyalty,” with its strobe light melody and genuine positivity that’s a full-on pop song, if rap is the new pop (which it is). Rihanna guests with Kendrick to swat away pettiness and bullshit in order to seek a real and honest connection: “Tell me who you loyal to,” they each demand. Perhaps the presence of megastar Rihanna hides this, but what’s inherent in this song, though, is that there’s an enormous burden of proof on someone—anyone—to prove their loyalty in spite of this me-first world. “LOVE.,” meanwhile, is a full-bodied and luscious R&B beat that Kendrick professes an authentic love, presumably for his fiancée. In a vacuum, it’s a doting love song, but it conspicuously follows “LUST.,” the same song that he turns the mirror back on society as the root of these curses: “As blood rush my favorite vein / Heartbeat racin' like a junkie's / I just need you to want me / Am I askin' too much? / Let me put the head in / Ooh, I don't want more than that / Girl, I respect the cat.” In all likelihood, this lascivious and uncomfortable chorus is a metaphor for fame, public adoration, and materialism more than actual (coercive) sex, but the language is striking and it taints the authenticity of “LOVE.” Lastly, “DUCKWORTH.” closes the album with its smashed-up soul sample, akin to old Kanye, that has a brightness and a garishness unlike anything else on the album. This isn’t an accident, as Kendrick drops the biting introspection for pure narrative, this one about his father not being killed in a KFC robbery by Top Dawg when he was working; the only reflection Kendrick does in the song proper is wonder what if Top Dawg killed my dad…then I’m not here, not rapping to you. But of course, we know the song reverses itself and puts Kendrick right back in the line of fire with the malevolent blind woman.

It’s a taut 55 minutes, in which Kendrick knows he’s the best rapper alive, yet knows that success leaves him feeling empty. To Pimp a Butterfly is open, in part, about his depression, just as DAMN. admits To Pimp a Butterfly didn’t solve the issues, personal or societal, that he hoped it would. He feels he’s given his all to be a voice for the marginalized and injustices, but he’s deflated to realize nobody’s praying for him. Carl’s voicemail gives Kendrick the only possible answer to all of this—Trump, racism, misogyny, mass shootings, climate change, lies, injustice, lust, depression, emotional voids. It’s that we’ve pissed off a higher power and his curses have come to collect.

DAMN. may not be life-affirming or heroic or Odyssean, but sometimes you don’t need explanations, sometimes hope feels naïve. If it can often feel like we’re living in the worst of times, at least we have DAMN. to commiserate with.

Now, can somebody start praying for us?

#Kendrick Lamar #damn #to pimp a butterfly #good kid m.A.A.d city #dr dre #kanye west #bekon #rihanna

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