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The First Time I Saw Kendrick

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I'm The Wonderfish.

In case you missed last week's post, we talked a little bit about how music can change someone's mood. I used Kendrick Lamar's performance on Saturday Night Live of the song I as an example of a performance that pushes me to work harder as a musician and songwriter. This was the first time I saw Kendrick perform live and I will never forget it. I was mesmerized. I had heard of Kendrick Lamar and listened to a few of his songs off of Good Kid, M. A. A. D. City prior to the show, but I hadn't listened to any of his albums in full. This song changed that. And, honestly, I haven't tried to learn the lyrics of a hip hop song word for word since my college days. This song changed that, too. This is the power of music.


So, after seeing this, I promptly purchased his To Pimp A Butterfly album and gave it a couple of listens. I thought it was incredible. In 2016, he released untitled unmastered and Damn in 2017. Damn intrigued me, and when I found out that you could listen to it in reverse order to hear a different take on the story, it just blew my mind. Then, this year, to top it all off, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Damn. Usually, a jazz artist or a classical artist receives this type of honor, so this is a bit of a shake up for the music world, and what I think is a bit of a wake up, too. I'd like to revisit this topic in the future, to take a closer look at the public response and what this means for music and songwriting. For now, if you'd like to read more about it, here is Ryan Reed's report of the ceremony, posted on May 30, 2018, on Rolling Stone. Shark's in the water! See you next week!
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