Classical Composer Analyzes Kendrick Lamar
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- Опубліковано 28 кві 2024
- The rhythms in Kendrick Lamar's Alright are crazy, but also fun! In this video I attempt to break them down.
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0:00 Introduction
04:36 How the Meter Works in Alright
11:15 Vocal rhythm in the Chorus
12:29 Vocal rhythm in the Verses
15:20 The Creative Process in Hip-Hop
Kendrick Lamar: Alright
• Kendrick Lamar - Alrig...
Kendrick Lamar: For Free
• Kendrick Lamar - For F...
Pulitzer Prize
• Stay humble! Kendrick ...
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• Kendrick Lamar Meets R...
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Sounwave Interview
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Bass King Kunta
• King Kunta (Kendrick L...
Research: We Gon’ Be Alright? The Ambiguities of Kendrick Lamar’s Protest Anthem
mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.1...
How Kendrick Lamar Raps like a drummer:
• How @kendricklamar RA...
Black Lives Matter Protest
• BlackLivesMatter - We ...
Fabolous Awwright
• Fabolous "Awwright" (W...
Alright Beat Breakdown
• Beat Breakdown - Alrig...
I love it when professionals take rap music seriously. It's so weird to me that some people think rap music isn't music.
because it's not. children tinkering around on computers and adding their nursery rhymes is not music.
@@sentryogmixmaster okay Ben Shapiro
@@sentryogmixmaster “its not”-🤓
@@sentryogmixmaster 🤡
@@LSMAFIA160 the dog chewed on its collar because it's a dog. it's not a cat so it didn't take its collar up a tree.-🤓
Me watching this as a kendrick fan with zero knowledge of music theory: “ ahhh… yes, yes the half time back beat” 🤓
@Camarade Toff ahhh yes yes…. Rhythmic focus 🤓
Ahh yes indeed... 🤓
🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@santiagodiaz-laguna4127 🤣🤣🤣
im watching and trying to figure out what they're having trouble with lmfao.. bop your head to the damn beat, viola! when it repeats THATS the downbeat!
Splendid! 🤓
To Pimp A Butterfly is not only an unbelievably musical statement but it describes the black experience which elevates it far beyond hip hop or rap. A well deserved Pulitzer Prize winner.
It didn’t win the Pulitzer though DAMN. did
@@therealmarkzuckerberg ok! My bad! But hey!
But why do we have to say it “elevates it”? That implies rap is less than.
@@BrendaGarcia-ty2ml I know there’s a lot of important relevant social commentary in a lot of hip hop - and a whole lot of blah - but the way Kendrick describes the black experience over a whole album and by using jazz - a part of black music history - as it’s foundation elevates the album above what most other hip hop artists were doing at that time. I’m not denigrating hip hop at all but ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ is a milestone not only in hip hop but music generally. One of the greatest albums to come out of the last decade IMHO:)
@@BrendaGarcia-ty2mlyou probably read this comment in the worst way possible smh. Hes saying that the subject matter and the excellence of the record breaks the boundaries that rap and hip hop are bound to. Just stop
Love how you turned the traditional elitist narrative of classical vs rap music on it's head with "if you want violence, knife crime, and mysogyny you'll have to wait for my video on Berg's Opera"
Yes that one was brilliant!
It's funny how people tend to ignore that some of the genius they like in the elitist classical art would Be criminals or thugs by today's standards..Bach stabbed a man, Caravaggio killed a man..Wagner was a imoral antisemitic bas.tard..etc..
@@fideletamo4292 Of course they would be, in our backward cancel culture world of today *sarcasm*
It was hilarious I thought he was going to go into UK drill Music and then bam! Nope lets talk O P E R A
@@fideletamo4292 They was gangsters in that time too.
The graphics while you’re explaining time signatures are literally phenomenal. It makes it super easy to follow. Thank you for this great video
I literally thought this @6:21 This whole video is a work of art in itself
Drake and J cole have no chance
😅😂cole already tucked his tail
Still think the same? 😂
@@ralfsl.2095 yeah
@@ralfsl.2095yes all drake said was he had size 7 shoes and that his label robbed him like😭
@@ralfsl.2095yep, Drake has nothing that compares to
I love both Beethoven and Kendrick Lamar. There's music for every mood and situation! Sometimes I want to blast Pavarotti in my car, and when I'm at the gym or dancing, I'll listen to the Outkast or Doja Cat. I'm glad for all the diversity of music we get to experience today!
I find it funny because I've heard too many rap songs mixed with classical music. I actually think they work oddly well together because Clasiscal music sometimes has this fast but special rhythm that just works with the rappers rhythms
@@illford6921 rap is a performance style, given the performer is good enough it can meld with any genre of music tbh
i had a phase of putting nessun dorma on repeat for my pr lifts🤣🤣here i was thinking i was the only freak listening to pavarotti at the gym
nevermind. i misread. it seems im the only freak listening to pavarotti at the gym 😢
@@illford6921 hip hop thrives off of samples and emulation of other genres and turning them into its own thing.
I am not a musician and have absolutely no knowledge of composition but this was so interesting and easy to follow. Down the rabbit hole I go!
Saaaammmeeee
Love the rabbit hole I’ve found myself stuck in lol
Basic
What did you learn
TPAB pretty much changed my musical life. I'm a metal head and had to work pretty hard to get out of thinking that rap wasn't music (or at least not music worth anything). Kendrick completely turned that on its head and blew me away. It was also the album that finally got me to start understanding and accept the reality of racism. So thanks Kendrick for a monumentally good and important album.
Glad you were able to face your own cognitive dissonance. Introspection can be a bitch when you have been validated your whole life through echochambers and propaganda. If you listen to a lot of the things some of these great rap artist are trying to say instead of, for example, getting caught up on the prominent usage of the word "nigga",then there is a lot to learn about their outlooks on life, their plights as a marginalized group, and the rich culture they want to preserve that has been systemically stripped away from them.
That’s so dope! That’s what hip hop used to be and now it’s one dude in the past 20 years that has that kind of ability. He’s crazy talented.
Ever listened to Death Grips?
I had an inverse experience with Black Sabbath. Great music is powerful enough to change perspective
Chad Apostle of Rock and Kendrick
Hip hop has so much more to offer than what people give it credit for.
Yep agreed.
It's poetry
It's quite literally the most popular genre nowadays. Not underrated at all, its given all the credit.
@@adrienloridon2425 right. Idk why people still act like rap culture is fighting for everyone’s respect lol. That battle was won years ago
Some people like more natural sounds then produced music. Personal preference ….Chase.
As a Kendrick fan seeing professional musicians and composers give him (and by extension the genre) a real critical look is quite inspiring and welcomed.
Nas been taught in schools since ducky was serving chicken
i think TPAB is an album everyone can agree is amazing. Even my dad who is known to dislike 90% of rap music greatly enjoys the jazz elements of the album. Its got something for everyone
Can't believe J Cole tried to sleep on it for even a second.
Everybody in the comments talking about how insightful u are on a musical level (I definitely agree), but I wanna mention that u are a top notch UA-camr as well. Ppl don’t think it’s a skill, but the attention-keeping style of fast but clean edits, obvious background research/preparation, nicely broken up commentary, etc. Shits dope, I’m impressed someone as skilled in a specific field like classical music composition AND well rounded enough to enjoy other genres is ALSO a very skilled youruber
Also his meme selection is top notch. Catch his needle drop ref at the 2 minute mark
very well said, noticed that too
ay ay
One has to read Adorno's and Horkheimer's theory of Mass Culture. And Fedric Jameson's theory of Copy Culture Future. Kendrik Lamar or any Hickory Dickory Rap Star - represent more than anything a deep sense of mediocrity, not personally yet as a existing condition, or call it legacy of culture turning into trash. That trash which has no innovation and nor any sustainability. As if a classical composer can deconstruct idiotic simple rhymes which we common musicians can't ?!
Agreed
I absolutely loved this and learned a great deal. Thank you
ayeee, it's Jon! Tottally agree with you, very interesting video indeed! Keep up the amazing work and have a good day brother!!
Nice seeing you here, Jon!
Do you have any examples of you substantially criticizing the hip hop you listen to
Jon!!!!
Same
This is sooooo dope!! Musicians taking hip-hop seriously... Breath of fresh air.
I feel like if you listen to Alright from more the perspective of a DAW using midi notes, you can understand the 4/4 and the chord change choices. When you can visualize rhythms in a DAW and move chords/samples in terms of semitones you can really start to understand Pharrell's process in terms of his musical choices.
It may seem crazy and weird from a classical music "transcribe everything" point of view, but IMO as someone who is more familiar with tinkering around in DAWs rather than technical music theory, his choices don't seem all that weird. Pharrell himself has talked about how he doesn't think about music in terms of time signatures and technical terms, he just goes more for emotion and feeling. I personally think that's what hip hop really is all about, it's not so much about how this would look transcribed on manuscript paper, hip hop is more about the feeling it evokes.
It's interesting to see modern Hip Hop analyzed this way, but I also think its sort of a misinterpretation entirely to try to explain "Alright" this way.
I don’t know what to tell you but this is the way musicians analyze music from a theoretical perspective. It doesn’t mean that they don’t appreciate the other, more evocative aspects as well.
It’s just a different way of looking at it
yup this is it. The main snares and kicks are where they‘re “supposed to be“ in hiphop - it‘s just the chords which are in weird places, and as a classical musician that’s what you‘ll focus on.
very good observation
@@tou-send4349 Are the chords really in 'weird' places though? On my first listen i heard it how everyone else does.
I think Anderson paak would have a couple of songs in 3/4, he has an elite drumming background too
That’s that boy Andrew
@Nolan Freeman Very true
@@theviscount4622 Some of those may be more of a 6/8 instead of 3/4
He’s really not underrated in the hip hop community. We’ve largely been advocates for his music for probably five years or so now aha.
i thought of flobots. At the least Andy has some wacky time feels in his flows but I bet he has at least one song in 3/4
"Music is music"
I totally agree with this, and being a person who listens to most genre of music. I've learnt that it is a beautiful art and is truly a universal language. Although, I have come across people who are into one genre and won't listen to anything else. Ive come to the conclusion as a parent, that letting my children listen to all genre of music is best. As it gives them the freedom for choice, whether they like a particular song in one genre, or they love a whole genre altogether. In the end, music is music and it should be enjoyed by the many.
I'm glad you do that because I was made to taboo most music and now I have to basically discover music from zero in my 20. "Why is this music like this?" "Because it's good music!"
I first heard this phrase in a sample used by Technimatic on their track with the same name - music is music.
I was lucky to have grown up listening to pretty much every genre possible and my mom encouraged me to explore.
Unfortunately, during my childhood and early 20s I was surrounded by people who limited themselves to metal or hip hop.
I might add that music is only an universal language of you open your ears and leave region based traditions and conventions about what music 'should' be behind.
My father is a jazz musician. I started classical piano training at 5, and jazz training at 9, and grew up with music as an inseparable part of my life. All genres. All aged of music. Music is just as essential to my life as water.
And this video is so timely as yesterday listening to Mr. Morale I was doing a rhythmic analysis in my head and thinking over how the production team so seemingly effortlessly brings forth the music behind the spoken word, which is a rare quality outside of conscious rap it feels like.
Listen!, I been listening to the album as well and trying to break it down and realize that it is actually composed like a classical piece. It's like listening to an orchestra. The tracks on the album are like movements in a classical piece.
@@ikonmediafilms yes
I fucking love your view on music.
It's lame how many people nowadays dismiss a potential work of art just because its belongs to a certain genre
@Sander Snoeren
Why you use profanity? Don’t you know that everything we do is sacred? But then, that’s how you beat us, because everything for you is profane. Which brings us _____ to your ill-timed use of profanity.
I don't like that track and most of nowadays hip hop because the rappers sound like little spoiled childs ranting for not getting whatever they want. I feel ashamed when I see a grown person talking like a baby who is learning to talk.
The chords also tend to be pretty random and too dissonant for my tastes. I also perceive in these tracks some vibes of cluster B personality disorders like narcissism.
I don't dislike hip hop as a genre. In fact, I like many hip hop tracks from the 80's and the 90's but nowadays stuff seem too dumb for me. It is like post-modern "art". Just narcissistic people wanting to get their narcissistic supply by making themes that stand out just for being weird. The lyrics are also narcissistic and shallow, not to mention the histrionic clothes, tattoos and accessories which are screaming "look at me".
The bottom line is that many people like me don't dismise this stuff because we are "intolerant", "closed-minded" or because we hate hip hop as a genre. Some of us have plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike certain tracks.
@@asamiyashin444 Yeah, I guess all the Institutionalised racism, Alcoholism and Violence amongst black community are totally "weird" topics to rap about, how "whiny and selfish" of Kendrick indeed.
@@MongerOfStrings8222 I only wrote my impressions. I don't like the narcissism that that kind of subculture transmits me.
@@asamiyashin444 Bragging has been a part of rap culture for years, I wouldn't take it too seriously to be honest. No one is actually that self centred, I mean just think of all of the collabs that happen all the time
Kanye West’s ‘Spaceship’ is in 6/8 if you’re still looking for a rap song that’s not in 4/4. There’s also Clipping’s ‘Story 2’ which changes time signature every couple of bars. That one is especially cool since he shows off a bunch of flow patterns that could never work in 4/4.
Yeah I thought of spaceship as soon he mentioned rap songs not in 4/4, also “gone fishin” by Captain Murphy is in 5/4
Also, Pain Everyday on the latest clipping album is in 7. Incredible how Daveed flows over this!
Always love seeing people mention Clipping. Such an underrated group. Too good
Flo bots have a 7/4 rap song too
Collect calls by Kendrick
You just earned a subscriber. As a longtime fan of hip hop (and really, most genres of music) it feels so nice to see someone analyze this genre with the respect and care that "traditionally" classic or popular genres would get. Too often I've witnessed people dismiss rap because of the blackness associated with it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
^^^
Love this fr
Yeah, I find there are very few genres which don't have at least SOMETHING to offer that I vibe with. My go to response to the "rap is just guns and drugs and killing!!" types is to just send them Kirby by Aesop Rock at this point.
That, or some of the incredible sci-fi concept albums like Deltron 3030 or Splendor and Misery. It's a shame that most of the exposure people will get to a genre is usually just a super narrow sample of whatever happens to get popular.
Also, I always laugh a little at the people who go "Oh yeah I hate country it's garbage" and then will drop whatever they're doing to sing along the moment someone puts on Country Roads or The Gambler.
I don't even listen to country but c'mon! Even I can recognize that it's a much broader genre than "Boy howdy I sure do miss my ex's pickup truck that I used to keep my fishing rods in"
The irony of white jazz musicians who are dismissive towards rap and hip hop for being black is so powerful, if we could harness it we could solve world hunger.
What's funny to me is that because I was trained in classical Indian music and because I've been an Indian classical percussionist for the past 20+ years, the beat was actually extremely straightforward to me - even with the lack of emphasis on the 1 beat, which is actually not uncommon in both singing and percussion as a way of using silence to build tension. Polyrhythms FTW!
Hello Sai. I'm sai
as a music producer it was just as straightforward to me lol-
i don't really know why he had a hard time realising where the 1 was
@@StalinkTzprobably his different background. it was clear to me as well cuz i listen to a lot of hiphop, but i also have rock friends and i dabble and we tend to have slightly different analyses of things. and classicals even further removed from that. i don't really think anybody has to be wrong or right abt it, artist intention isnt the only thing that matters in theory.
@@user-ze7sj4qy6q ehhhhh. I'm rewatching his video and I'm finding it very, very difficult to accept the fact that someone like him can be SO BAD at natural rhythm - ESPECIALLY someone trained in classical music. It's unbelievable that just shifting something by half a beat can apparently throw someone off so badly. Then again, I can understand a song like this just fine: ua-cam.com/video/r6tU3GvJ5so/v-deo.html
@@StalinkTz I was going to say this. My assumption is that he hasn't heard the song that much. To me it was immediately apparent but I've heard the track so many times, so I assume that's why. Either that or he's trying to use the drums to determine where the first beat is without taking into account the harmony.
Pharrell is a brilliant producer. The amount of thought and craftsmanship put into this track is amazing, creating this huge musically heavy production, yet leaving just enough room for Kendricks lyrics is just a work of art.
Calling Pharrell a brilliant producer is a massive understatement.
The praise and importance heaped on TPAB is a great thing, but something about it always rubbed me the wrong way as a long time hip hop fan. It's not that the hype was wrong, but I feel like there were a lot of new fans of hip hop going nuts over well-established techniques and influences as if Kendrick introduced them. That this album was a brilliant exception in an overall simple, shallow genre. On the contrary, Kendrick was able to put that album together only because of a lifetime immersed in hip hop music and culture.
To me, all the things people point out as novel were always things I saw as fundamental elements of hip hop. Jazz influence, spoken word, emphasis on half time beats, unusual syncopation, minimizing parts of the rhythm section to make room for the rapper... That's like what hip hop has been about. Kendrick just knows his shit.
Subtle changes in vocal rhythm patterns, timing, emphasis, playing past the bar line, swing, even the use of certain phonemes for their rhythmic elements, that's all just flow. It's like the most important part of a rapper's performance.
In some cases it feels like like hearing someone go wild if a jazz musician played an arpeggio or played with swing. Those are just the fundamentals, bro.
So people might have all the academic training in the world, but if they haven't even listened to Biggie, for example, they really don't have the grounding in this unique genre to appreciate Kendrick's work in context. Also lyrics, individual words, and vocal sounds are really really really important in quite a lot of hip hop, and I think they're often overlooked by academics or misidentified as shallow by people who don't understand how they are used in the genre. Unlike in other genres, in my opinion, they're really inseparable from the composition.
To be clear, none of my rant is a criticism of your video. I think you're doing something great shedding some light on the cleverness and subtlety that goes into making good hip hop. And you seem very straightforward in your approach. I'm more pointing out there is another side of the coin in terms of that "classical music nerd" trope that's also annoying: people just dipping their toes in the genre thinking they're seeing the reinvention of the wheel just because it's not what they're used to.
Academic analysis of hip hop is a good thing (and I have to shout out Martin at rapanalysis.com who has been doing it for years), but I think any worthwhile approach has to involve asking the experts first (and more importantly listening to them), which is why it's always good to have a ?uestlove reference. Just because hip hop hasn't been codified on paper doesn't mean it doesn't take years of specific study to get right, and I do think there are some significant barriers between it and other genres. So I think it's good when people approach it with the proper humility, and I think you're someone who always does this.
To sum it all up, I feel like hip hop needs it's own version of "The Simpsons did it" meme. If you hear something that sounds new, The Roots probably did it 20 years ago.
Thanks for the video. Well done.
The entire argument of your post is made redundant by the fact that TPAB sucks. I don't know any hardcore Hip Hop fan that likes that album. The praise that it receives comes mostly from Hipster white music critics full of white guilt, impressed by it's socially conscious lyrics about a black man's struggles to remain true to himself in a white World. Like that topic had never been done before. The instrumentals of the album dound more like soul and jazz than Boom Bap beats. It's an extremely pretentious album and vastly overrated.
Great comment! I 100% agree.
@@petercoderch589 lol. I don't agree with you that it sucks, or about hip hop fans, but I do agree with you that it's a lot of white hipsters' first hip hop album. I do think Kendrick is very skilled, but he's not my favorite rapper. Some of that comes down to his voice though.
@@petercoderch589 TPAB doesn't suck and I've seen hardcore hip hop fans praise it but you are definitely right about the hipsters liking it
I don't think it's just fans of other genres, I've seen a lot of mainly rap/hiphop reviewers act like it's brand new concept when it's not really. Still a pretty good album.
It's always interesting to see people not from a hiphop background struggle to hear a 4:4 backbeat with a little syncopation.
Yeah it was weird to me that he was confused by this.
RIGHT im like where's the ambiguity
Yep, same here. There's absolutely nothing ambiguous about the meter of this track to me. Someone show him some one-drop reggae haha
It's also interesting to have the syncopation be academically analyzed to explain how and why the rhythm has the effect it does
YES. and the first thing he said about Kendrick’s music that he likes so much is that it’s Jazzy. Idk about y’all but when I think jazzy I think syncopation
I really admire the fact classical composers are analyzing Kendrick Lamar. Overall, Kendrick did make a huge impact on musicians worldwide.
Made no impact whatsoever. He's not a musician. He's a joke.
@@phasespace4700You hate aimlessly because your life is empty and dull.
the anthony fantano reference was slept on~ so good!
Kendrick's discography is... so good. sum like TPAB is a MASTERCLASS of an album. "Alright" is one of the best rap songs ever. hes so good at his art.
Good kid MAAD city is my favorite album of his. The storytelling and album sequencing is just incredible. And musicly, it's beautiful and easy to listen to.
Everything is perfect in his discography. Love his last album too
@@paulh3261 me too. I get mental images just by his songs and the sequencing. He's an icon
@@TheLily97232 to me, Kendrick is the greatest rapper of all time. Bar none.
I like Momma (you aint gotta lie)
Complexion just blows me away. The whole album is dopeness.
I love how you mentioned Alban Berg's Wozzeck and connected everything with the notion of "music is music". Funnily enough, Berg himself said this to George Gershwin as well. When Gershwin visited Europe to meet Berg in the spring of 1928, he went to the piano to play some of his songs but he hesitated because Berg's "serious" classical work left him awestruck. At that time, Berg looked at him and said: "Mr. Gershwin, music is music." Amazing video as usual David! Kudos to your enthusiasm!
Finally someone has said my thoughts. This belittling of genres and the artist in those genres is so dumb. Some of us are not here for that , we just want the music and a good body of work. This belittling gets us nowhere. I believe music is connected for different genres to exists thier was like a genres before that one. I believe music builds from those before but is also innovative.
As Duke Ellington said, _"There's only two types of music: that's Good music, and Bad."_
Man this is F and crazy I had no idea that his music was this complex I'm just a casual listener and I would have never known that this masterpiece was constructed like this. It just shows the levels Kendricks music is on. Just WoW I'm blown away.
kendrick is a musical theory master- there’s one song where he counts down from 10, and the syllables In each bar are the current number he counts. there’s a few numbers he skips which appear in the syllables/music. its why his music takes so incredibly long
It’s not just music- it’s poetry.
The entire to pimp a butterfly album is actually structured as a poem!
@@user-oh2mrfeescnu I honestly think it's impressive he can create this music as fast as he does. He released TPAB 3 years after GKMC.
for rhythmically complex hip-hop, you might find clipping to be interesting! story 2 in particular travels through like four different time signatures
Ohh it's way more than four in that particular song, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 8/4, then it goes nuts and I lose count
@@iamalittleboat look, im a computer scientist and a musician, i have computers do counting for me so i can't do it by myself
As well as _The Weather_ by Busdriver, Radioinactive, and Daedelus.
Beat me to it, it’s like a pendulum. Love that song so much.
@@nacirema2710 +1 for Daedelus!
I felt the 1 where Questlove felt it the first time I heard it, but that might be because I play jazz and make hip hop. To me it was obvious and the place you were counting the 1 felt really odd. It might be because we're taught in jazz to only count the 2 and 4 and not the 1 and 3 when practicing, and when programming drums in drum and bass or hip hop you learn that the groove actually comes from leaving bits OUT. Funk drummers know this better than anyone, and the heavy funk influence on the album might also contribute to that. Often times omitting a kick or snare on a beat where you expect it makes it groove way harder.
Yeah I found it hard to imagine the 1 anywhere else
Yeah I felt the same way but I play jazz drums so maybe it's just us :/
i agree 😭
Same, I was confused where he placed the first count. It seemed obvious to me that the choir singing sample was a 4 bar loop and came in on the downbeat. interesting how classically centered musicians internalize the beat so differently from jazz musicians sometimes
Yeah same, I was so confused when he said there was ambiguity. It's far from a unique rhythm.
This is so crazy because traditional rap has alot of artists who never go this deep in detail about the process
As someone who obsesses over time signatures and chord progressions, but who just does not listen to much rap, "Alright" immediately caught my attention. There are two chords in the song. This, in and of itself, would have been a challenge for most producers in this world, but not for Pharell and Sears, clearly. The semitone m9 drop is legendary. I noticed the offbeat 3/16ths as well! Although I didn't think the 3-5 offbeat was as elusive as you made it out to be. The song is replete with verbal syncopation, and I think this is why Kendrick stands out from the rest of the hip hop crowd. Note, also, the more "rustic"/"tribal" (IMO) vocals at "Tell the world I know it's too late" which is based on the Phrygian 7th scale at the backdrop of the more cosmopolitan/contemporary semitone m9 drop. Also, the cosmopolitan/sophisticated flavour of the m9 drop contrasts the dystopian, hopeless theme of the lyrics of the song. The semitone drop is colorful and ornate, but the video is black-and-white and the characters in it basic. Overall, to me, this song is rhythmically, tonally, and thematically unique.
i dont understand a single thing fully but thats actually quite amazing...
‘Two chords in the song would have been a challenge for most producers’, what are you talking about?
@@persona8991see 10:57 in this video. "The whole chord slides down a semitone". The whole song is just this chord change repeating itself over and over again. Generally, it's not easy to make an outstanding song with just two chords since there's not enough creative space, but I guess that's enough creative space for some :)
As an black operatic musician I was stunned hearing your rhythmic analysis. I genuinely can’t comprehend how you heard the downbeat any other way.
Man this is amazing. Kendrick is one of the first rappers I listened too, and his stuff just hits different. Thanks for the vid.
Holy crap i just realized how often pharrell used that type of intro
I think it's awesome that the newest generation of music academics seem to be so enthusiastic about fixing a lot of the issues that have plagued music academia. It's often so underequipped to analyse anything outside of classical and jazz music that it'd be easy to just write off the whole field, but it's commendable to see all these people working hard to expand the tools and methods available to better discuss and understand music.
I'm noticing that the "ghost notes" on the snare (as Questlove called it) is just an 808 snare, and the snare hit on the downbeat (aside from being programmed with a higher velocity than the other "softer" snare sounds) is layered with a clap in order to accentuate it.
I'm mainly a rock musician, I don't usually work with samples, so these subtle production tricks in pop and hip hop fascinate me.
Not to be _overly_ pedantic, but yeah, I mean that's literally what ghost notes are: hits on an instrument that are softer than the main hits on the instrument, which are usually done on a snare drum in the drumming world. In this case (which is common with 808 based hiphop beats), the clap is playing the part that the rim would play in producing a rimshot sound on an acoustic snare drum. Gives it that extra crack. So we got an emulated rimshot backbeat with ghost notes in between. The majority of the "drumkit" in this beat (with the exception of the tom fills D believe) is actually samples from an 808 drum machine or software emulating an 808, so it makes sense that the snare ghost notes would be 808 snare hits.
I'm a bit confused by your use of quotation marks around "ghost notes" and your use of the word "just". The ghost notes ARE ghost notes... in the form of a programmed 808 snare sample.
@@OdaKa As for the quotation marks: I don't exactly remember why I chose to put them there. I think it's because I wasn't really sure if they were really ghost notes, so I wanted to convey some of that doubt about the correct use of the term?
And I said "just" because... well, the ghost notes are an 808 snare sample and nothing else. The snare hits that aren't ghost notes (as in, the main snare hits) are layered with a clap as well, therefore not just the snare sample.
As I said, I'm primarily a rock musician. I usually work with human drummers that play real drumkits, not with samples. I know SOME aspects of drum programming, and I know SOME stuff about 808s, but I'm far from an expert, it's not really my field. This was just the first time I looked at this kind of production so up close, and I'm just noticing this stuff for the first time. For you it may seem obvious, but to me it's something new and exciting, you know :)
@@JackieTheCatfox Ahhh, Okay. I wasn't sure if you were being reductive and dismissive or not, because of the comparison between real drums and drum machines. I did come at it defensively, but not too much I hope.
Yeah, I would be hesitant to call them ghost notes because, while they're softer than the main hits, they're not _that_ much softer. More like unaccented notes, like a drumline would play. But they rhythmically playing the role of ghost notes in a drumkit context, they're just a bit louder than a live drummer would play them. And hiphop 808 snare hits tend to not have a ton of dynamic range anyway (that's usually reserved for loops sampled from live drummers), so if ?uestlove is calling them ghost notes, I'm inclined to defer to his expertise lol. And my own experience with hiphop drum programming terminology leads me to refer to them as ghost notes too.
And yeah, I totally get the new and exciting thing! I hope my comments were more helpful than off-putting. The world of hiphop drum machines and samples and loops goes really deep. I appreciate your gracious response!
yes the accent snare is a different 808 trap sound but the main snare isn't layered with a clap, it's just stereo delayed. it's the popular luger snare sound
@@bigboilover6936 Oh, nice! Thanks for the correction, it sounded like an 808 clap to me.
I think that bass hit at 4 as you've identified is part of an extremely common rhythmic clave in rap and particularly trap, where the bass sound is like an 808 bass where you can't tell if it's percussion or not. Like it hits but it also sustains a pitch. anyway in the half-time feel it's 1..... 4.... 2... and-of-3...
It's so common I'll turn to my buddies at like sports stadiums where a bunch of rap bangers get played and move on those hits, even in songs I've never heard before. I think if you had been more exposed to this, you wouldn't get thrown hearing that bass hit on 4 as the downbeat, because it's like THE groove in a lot of hip hop now
yeah this video just kinda outs him as pretty much never listening to any new rap lol
Was about to write a way worse version of this comment thank you for explaining this
Bruh I was gonna say… the percussion/drums are really nothing special it’s like thee most common pattern in modern rap
my thoughts exactly. the 1 was blatantly obvious to me. All love here but glad i wasn’t the only one that noticed.
Please stop it , you got it all wrong .
To put it another way, Kendrick and Pharrell are composing fractically precise, ever evolving poems.. Others call it Rap, some even look down on it. The main point is that he is lyrically composing the life of the individual. That is why so many people resonate with this form of music. Kendrick and Pharrell are the Mozarts of our contemporary era.
As a Hip Hop artist from a family of classical musicians, I particularly appreciate this. You put so much of what I've struggled to impart to both my Hip Hop peers and my classical music relations into an eloquent and entertaining format. Thank you.
Omg… my blood pressure went up when you were trying to identify the 1. 🤣
I’m a musician but also a Latin dancer and we can often tell where you come from based on ability to identify timing (although this is changing). Timing creates flexibility (or restrains it) in both music and dance. It’s one of my favorite topics to hear a discussion on.
To pimp a butterfly truly deserves this kind of attention. Great analysis!
Ps… I’m trying to put my finger on it, but I believe there might have been some late 80’s hip hop on 3/4, but I’ll have to think about it. 🤔🤔
facts, Latin/Caribbean music requires you to have an acute sense of time. it didnt really occur to me how complex the rhythms are in this song bc im used to rhythms crossing over the bar. but after watching the video, i think its necessary for a lot of people into music
David you gotta list to some clipping if you want to hear hip hop in different time signatures. They’ve got a bunch of really off the wall stuff
@Afonso Topa Came to the comments exactly to recommend Clipping and story 2 in particular. Glad to see someone beat me to it :)
Gonna check this out. Any other reccomendations?
@@Ayo.Ajisafe Pain Everyday is in 7/8 if I'm not mistaken and also has a pretty powerfull storytelling vibe to it (all of their songs have it, in fact, but in this one I feel the stilted nature of the time signature meshes well with the confusion and anger of the lyrics)
Story 7 is probably the most obvious example, crazy switching time with insane flow in the first half giving way to a heavy 4/4 beat in the second half
literaly gonna leave the same comment
Having musicians from different genres studying or analyzing your music, means you're the G.O.A.T
Don't show this to Ben Shapiro
💯 😂
This didn't age well
@@josephbartholomewhow?
He topped the rap charts recently
@@mattreynolds110
@@mattreynolds110because Ben Shapiro made a rap song with Tom Mcdonald lol
tyler the creator’s “garden shed” seems to me to be in 3/4, and its flow is also in triplets which just sounds incredible. what meter would that be, 9/16 or something? anyways, good song
I think it's in 6/8
I think it's 12/8
I think it’s 24/8
48/8s I believe
I think its 96/8
Hell yes, HELL YES! This is the eclectic approach that we need! As an Italian boy who was brought up by classical music (my father works in this field) and then has discovered everything else, I really appreciate the positive message of this video. My experience has taught me how beautiful is variation: there are so many colours in music out there, and being snob or pretending that good music has vanished years ago is just lazy and detrimental. Whoever believes in this rubbish isn't aware that this approach damages music itself. Therefore thanks again for this video!
Bro that snobby shit is still here. It's unbelievable.
Finally someone said it.
Good music did die years ago. What we have today is a an *attempt* to salvage it.
couldn't agree more
@@freepagan when exactly did good music die, if I may ask?
As a classical violinist and lover of many different musical genres I appreciate your work and the depth of your analysis. Thank you for a brilliantly constructed video.
Topic: awesome
Modesty: hell yeah
Background Research: 10/10
Presentation+editing: phenomenal
Insightfulness: def wanna learn more now.
You sir are a pro and have just won a over a super picky subscriber. Whatever it is you're doing, keep it up!
Just started listening to Kendrick's stuff, your video couldn't be more on point! Always love to see the nice positive looking icons in your videos (kick, hihat, snare...) They help me focus when I'm not sightreading. Thank you!
Idk about 3/4 but “Your Prime” is a phenomenal track by Anderson .Paak in 9/8. Definitely the most natural and yet funky 9/8 I’ve heard
That entire album is fire. 🔥🔥😩
Drake aint never have a composer analyzing his shit lol
On god bro
The information you gave was fantastic. The editing in the video reinforced it so well. The presentation here is high quality, and the edit stands out.
Other comments have mentioned it, but the hip hop group clipping. have a knack for messing around in different time signatures. Story 2 is fantastic with an increasing time signature (2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, etc.), Pain Everyday is entirely in 7/4, and Story 7 has a section in 15/8, then 21/8, and then into 4/4. They have a lot of cool rhythmic elements to their tracks
As a drummer, I found it Interesting to see you interpret it as ambiguous. I really found it hard to hear it the way you did! I appreciate your explanations :)
Not sure how this ended up on my TL either, but I stayed for this whole episode. Loved it. Could you do more videos like this please?!
Phenomenal breakdown. Loved it. Well done.
I love how you taught yourself something about rhythmic cadence through analyzing this song. Good on you Dave, the genuine interest and respect is lovely to see.
Having my muso brother play me alright on his car speakers was the most influential musical experience I've ever had. All the subconscious stigma about rap that I'd inherited from my parents was gone the moment that groove hit me. My brother later gave me a USB of the entire album, and it's probably still my most listened album of all time 6 years later.
The lesson learned from the creative process really is open ended on this one. There's certainly more I could open my mind to on this! Thank you David 👍
Love that you can actually see and breakdown the art impressive.. crazy that you can put it in a digestible vid
Incredible stuff, David. I love how you were able to talk about so many different things in a single very well-paced, fun, and informative video. I know I'll be watching this a few more times :)
the editing in this video is really clean and dynamic! perfect for emphasizing and illustrating what you were saying
To Pimp A Butterfly is a CLASSIC, will forever stand on its own pedestal aside from every other hip hop album ever made..
This is video is actually amazing🙌🏾 such a gem. Loved it.
Bro I almost broke out a notebook for notes 😭 felt like I was back in college I love videos like these
This analysis is super interesting because I've always subconsciously counted 'Alright' the way that Questlove counted it. Idk if it's because I've been a fan of Kendrick for so long, or because I'm not a classically trained musician (it's probably both), but hearing a different perspective on the song like this is really cool.
I am glad I found this channel. I LOVE your perspective 💛
Wow the quality of this analysis is so good im loving this man thank you so much! This is one of my favorite tracks and it's just so much I didn't know.
I really like the way your content is evolving, the editing, diversity of topics and level of research you put into is making me feel like I should be paying for this kind of videos. Please do keep 'em coming. On an unrelated note I'd also love your take on Death Grips' music. Cheers
Clipping uses a lot of odd time for a hip hop group. Story 2 uses an incrementing meter, and Break The Glass is mostly in 11/8.
EDIT: There's also story 7 which is... complex to say the least
God ole 15/16 where measures alternate between groupings of 3 and 5
Man i love the way you've presented all this through the video❤️
Absolutely love your analysis! ❤
The editing in this is brilliant
This was truly incredible! I don't know how or why this video came up in my "feed" but I'm so thankful that it did. Many blessing to you and yours, in all your future endeavors.
This was one of the best dissections of Kendricks music I've ever seen. Very well done!!
Love this approach and love how you call out the genre snobs. I promise I'm not trying to puff up my own ego, but "X genre is better than Y genre, and Z genre just sucks" was an attitude I discarded in my early teens. It baffles me that grown-ass adults still have a stick up their backside about forms of music they enjoy, as if art were ever a competition to be won or a war to be fought, yet, sure enough, people twice my age still act like I did at less than half mine.
Thank you for calling out this guy! 0:08
I thought this guy seemed suspicious but couldn't find out if he had any credentials or not.
Also as someone who's a classically trained violinist, THANK YOU for saying this (1:21). I absolutely adore classical music, especially Mahler Symphonies, but I'm also a huge fan of Rap, as well as most music that comes out of many of the currently trending music genres and subgenres.
Once quick question....where do you find all of these studies done on Kendrick's music as well as on other current artists? I've never seen anything like what you're showing anywhere before!
@isolate__ Hell yeah! I had the privilege to play his 6th Symphony on my youth orchestra, and the rest is history xD
@isolate__ ooof, rip man, that's a bittersweet story :(
This rythmic ambiguity is one of my favourite sensations. You hear the instruments sans percussion, and then the drums hit, you realise "oh, that's where it is".
wow, I am stunned by your way of approaching to explain the whole ordeal of this song!
You are a wonderful teacher! Ok now I need more of this stuff!
5:46 This is one of my favorite timing "tricks" to throw into what would seem like a straightforward part. I often like adding one +1 beat to the end of a looping phrase until the phrase completes in entirety and wraps back around on first the down beat. This can also be great when you have a part that has 3 measures of 4 and 1 measure of 3 or 5, but say the guitar could be heard in triplets depending on when the drums switch. It's tough to not fall back to generic or overused poly-rythms or poly-meters.
Kendrick is truly on another level. He brings the spice and fresh perspective that OutKast first had, but with these very theme oriented pieces often referencing or alluding to prior works of his or of pop-culture and litature.
Very cool breakdown. Thanks for bringing these worlds together. More like this, please!
I find it most interesting the way cadences are created after the track is already finished. You have this completed work from one mind now serving as a foundation for whatever creativity can be applied in how to structure words into the beat. Then when you get several people on the same beat and analyze how their approaches differ, that's when you can truly appreciate what a skilled rapper can do.
Music is so complex and awesome ... I love it when it's all broken down ... And the reason I love rap and hip hop is the huge amount of sampling that is done that can lead you down a huge rabbit hole through other genres ❤️❤️
Thank you David! This analysis is absolutely blow me out!!!
As a classical musician raised in a non classical music large family I appreciate the crossover here very much. IMO there is much to be inspired by the process of pop and contemporary production moving forward in classical composition and how it might inform some quality innovation in the 'classical' composition world. It's there to inspire if we want to see and if we are creative enough to render it into something new.
Plus David, nice amp on your hairstyle and production values!!
This video was beautifully created! Thank you. New subscriber🙌🏾
This was an amazing analysis. In the Hip Hop and RnB scene, a lot of what you explain are just chalked up to “feeling” and “vibes” so it’s nice to see the truth behind it actually laid out like this
Great break down, I normally don’t watch a video longer than 5min long but u kept me engaged the whole 20min from start to ending and I hung in there with u. bravo on this breakdown of a wonderful work of art.
This was such a fantastic education on a song I consider to be a masterpiece. Thank you!
Awesome! I'd love to see more breakdowns like this with more popular music especially hip hop and trap
This is simply ingenious. Amazing work! Really style really helps unlock so much more musical possibilities.
This analysis was special. Great video. 👍
Dude, kendrick is fire as hell. The storytelling, the rhythm, it's on a whole different level. Listen to to pimp a butterfly and tell me I'm wrong.
I find it really, really fascinating, that as a drummer your first impression of where 1 was immediately felt wrong to me. This is just like Meshuggah. 4/4 all the way with a little help of the backbeat. No kidding, the backbeat is one of the most important things in this kind of music
stumped how anyone could struggle with it tbh
@@niamhheron5587 He came at it like a composer and listened to the chords first! He said so when discussing the chord selection. Makes sense from that perspective. But yeah, that snare backbeat on 3 is key to the whole rhythm.
I felt it the same way you did. I think its, for lack of a better term, like a classical feel. I've played classical and contemporary concert band for a while and from the perspective of a jazz musician the feel might be obvious. I bet if you put us in an odd classical context we would probably struggle the same way that a classical musician would struggle with feeling the beat in alright.
Theory actually makes people worse at music
There's literally nothing complicated about this song
Love this! Informative, interesting , and moving content!
Love your reference to opera and violence. Brilliant video and thank you for your deep dive and analysis