But having a harsh outlook on life, the caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak and figures out a way to pimp it to its own benefits. The butterfly represents the talent, the thoughtfulness and the beauty within the caterpillar. One thing it notices is how much the world shuns him but praises the butterfly. While consuming its environment, the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive. Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it in order to protect itself from this mad city. вЂњThe caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it. But Lamar has gone further to give meaning to the metaphor, and he explains it on the album itself, at the end of the recordвЂ™s last track вЂMortal ManвЂ™: You only have to look at the album artwork, or listen to the single вЂThe Blacker The BerryвЂ™, to realise that To Pimp A Butterfly shares the same thematic space as Harper LeeвЂ™s novel.

The most obvious connection is to Harper LeeвЂ™s 1960 novel To Kill A Mockingbird itself a politically charged piece of work that deals thematically in oppression and institutionalised racism. To understand the story Kendrick Lamar is telling on this album we first need to look at the title and what it means. IвЂ™m sure more details will become clearer on future listens after all there is so much to digest here. It is my own interpretation of the album based on a day and half of listening to the record. IвЂ™m an English Literature graduate, so it is in my nature to over-anaylse pieces of work like this, and therefore IвЂ™m going to attempt to explain To Pimp A Butterfly. But after listening to To Pimp A Butterfly, the story of GKMC seems rather simple when compared to everything going on here. And thatвЂ™s before we even get to the content.Д«ack when GKMC was released I wrote a detailed explanation of that albumвЂ™s narrative. A platinum selling mainstream rapper has the luxury to dine out on the same sound for years, but Kendrick is a true artist and a risk taker, and has ventured completely left-field for this album.

Kendrick is constantly swerving the listener constant beat switches, odd musical detours, instrumentation that appears and disappears without warning. Kendrick is out to knock everyone off balance with this record, and not just in comparison to his prior work, but within the album itself. It sounds nothing like GKMC, which believe it or not, isnвЂ™t a bad thing. Sound wise the album is like a foray through the history of black music: from free-form jazz, to Parliament era cosmic funk, spoken word, 90s West Coast g-funk, Aquemini era Outkast, neo-soul, and modern day FlyLo abstract experimentation. There is so much depth of content that the album requires multiple listens to take in everything that Kendrick is saying. To Pimp A Butterfly is a multi-layered, dense record not only musically but lyrically. IвЂ™ve played the album back-to-back for the past day and half and I still havenвЂ™t even began to scratch the surface of what this record has to offer. One week ahead of schedule, Kendrick LamarвЂ™s highly anticipated follow up to 2012вЂІs universally acclaimed good kid, m.A.A.d city (GKMC), the intriguingly titled To Pimp A Butterfly, arrives via iTunes and Spotify for immediate consumption.

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