To Pimp a Butterfly sold 324,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release, earning a chart debut at number one on the USBillboard 200, while also becoming Lamar's first number-one album in the UK. It was eventually certifiedplatinum by theRecording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and sold one million copies in the United States by 2017. Five singles were released in promotion of the album, including thetop 40 hit "I". Lamar also supported the album with the Kunta's Groove Sessions Tour from late 2015 to early 2016.
The album received widespread acclaim from critics, who praised its musical scope and the social relevance of Lamar's lyrics. It earned Lamar seven nominations at the2016 Grammy Awards, including a win forBest Rap Album and anAlbum of the Year nomination. He received four additional nominations for other collaborations from that year, receiving a total of 11 Grammy nominations, which was the most nominations for any rapper in a single night. It toppedThe Village Voice's annualPazz & Jop poll of American critics nationwide, and was also ranked as the best album of 2015 by many other publications. In the years following its release, several publications namedTo Pimp a Butterfly one of the best albums of the 2010s; in 2020, the album was ranked 19th onRolling Stone's updated list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
On February 28, 2014,Kendrick Lamar first revealed the plans to release a follow-up to his second studio album,Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012), during an interview withBillboard.[2] Between the releases ofGood Kid, M.A.A.D City andTo Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar traveled to South Africa.[3] Touring the country and visiting historic sites such asNelson Mandela's jail cell onRobben Island heavily influenced the direction of the record[3] and led to Lamar scrapping "two or three albums worth of material".[4]
Co-producerSounwave spoke on Lamar's visit, saying, "I remember [Lamar] took a trip to [South] Africa and something in his mind just clicked. For me, that's when this album really started."[5] Regarding his visit to South Africa, Lamar said, "I felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn't taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put [together] a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they're still in the ghettos of Compton. I wanted to put that experience in the music."[5] In addition, Lamar said, "The idea was to make a record that reflected all complexions ofblack women. There's a separation between the light and the dark skin because it's just in our nature to do so, but we're all black. This concept came from South Africa and I saw all these different colors speaking a beautiful language."[5]
Themixing desk at Chalice Recording Studios in Hollywood
To Pimp a Butterfly was recorded at a variety of studios; including Chalice Recording Studios,Downtown Studios, House Studios, Notifi Studios and No Excuses Studios.[6] Lamar wrote the lyrics to the song "Mortal Man" while onKanye West'sYeezus Tour.[7] During the whole tour, producerFlying Lotus played Lamar a selection of tracks that was intended forCaptain Murphy's album (Flying Lotus's alter ego).[8] Lamar kept all the tracks, but only opener "Wesley's Theory", which also featuresThundercat andGeorge Clinton, made the final cut onto the album.[8] Lotus had produced a version of "For Sale? (Interlude)" that was ultimately discarded, with Lamar using Taz Arnold's version of the song on the album instead.[8][6] Lotus stated that it is unlikely his version of the song will see a release.[9] American rapperRapsody appeared on the album, contributing a verse to the song "Complexion (A Zulu Love)".[10][11] Lamar had requested that9th Wonder contact Rapsody and request her appearance.[10][11] Rapsody and Lamar discussed the song but there was little instruction from Lamar regarding her contribution.[10][11] Speaking about the song, she stated that Lamar had already decided on the concept of the song and stated that the only instructions he gave were the song's title and the idea that "...we are beautiful no matter our race but he really wanted to speak to our people and address this light versus dark complex".[10][11] Lamar also contactedMadlib to seek his collaboration on the record but was unable to reach him.[12]
In 2014,Pharrell Williams, who previously worked with Lamar, along with producer Sounwave, played the track "Alright" at the Holy Ship Festival.[13] The track features the same unidentified sample that Williams used onRick Ross' track "Presidential" from his albumGod Forgives, I Don't (2012).[14] Reportedly, at one time it featured aguest appearance from American rapperFabolous.[13][14][15] The album went through three different phases before the production team could move forward with the idea.[16] Afterwards, producer Thundercat was brought into the process, after Flying Lotus brought him along to see Lamar's performance on The Yeezus Tour.[16] The album's lead single, titled "I", was produced byRahki, who also produced a song for the album entitled "Institutionalized".[6] Containing a sample of the song "That Lady" performed bythe Isley Brothers, Lamar personally visited the Isley Brothers, to receive permission from lead vocalistRonald Isley to sample the song.[17]
Bass playerThundercat (left) and singerBilal are among the musicians who contributed to the album.
Lamar began traveling toSt. Louis and began working with Isley at the studio.[17] Isley also performed on the song "How Much a Dollar Cost" alongside the singer-songwriterJames Fauntleroy.[17] Producer and rapperPete Rock provided some backing vocals andscratches to the song "Complexion (A Zulu Love)", and as he stated, the contribution was unusual, as he was not the producer for the track.[18] SingerBilal features on the songs "Institutionalized" and "These Walls", and has provided uncredited backing vocals on the songs "U", "For Sale? (Interlude)", "Momma" and "Hood Politics".[6] Bilal stated that he and Lamar were initially unsure of how many songs he would be featured on, stating he worked on various tracks, but did not yet know the outcome.[19] "For a lot of the material, Kendrick had an idea of what he wanted. He would sing out the melody and some of the words, and I would interpret what he was telling me."[19] On the songs where Bilal added backing vocals, he stated that "...some of it was freestyle; just adding color to make it a fuller sound."[19] Lamar also reportedly worked with American musicianPrince; however, the duo were too pressed for time during the recording session and therefore were unable to complete any work for inclusion on the album.[20][21][22] Lamar professed to having listened often toMiles Davis andParliament-Funkadelic during the album's recording.[23]
In 2016, Lamar releasedUntitled Unmastered, a compilation album, which contains previously unreleased demos that originated during the recording ofTo Pimp a Butterfly.[24] According to producer Thundercat, it "completes the sentence" of Lamar's third studio album.[24]
According to musicologist Will Fulton,To Pimp a Butterfly engages in and celebrates theblack music tradition.[25] Much like the singerD'Angelo on his 2014 albumBlack Messiah, Lamar "consciously indexes African American musical styles of the past in a dynamic relationship of nostalgic revivalism and vanguardism."[25] Kyle Anderson ofEntertainment Weekly described the album as "embracing the entire history of black American music."[26] Lamar's co-engineer/mixer MixedByAli praised Lamar, saying, "[Lamar is] a sponge. He incorporated everything that was going on [in Africa] and in his life to complete a million-piece puzzle."[5] Lamar described the album as an "honest, fearful and unapologetic" work that draws onfunk,hard bop,spoken word andsoul[3][23] while critics also noted elements ofWest Coast hip-hop[27] andavant-garde.[28][29] Allison Stewart fromThe Washington Post says the album is "threaded" withG-funk.[30] Speaking on the album's styles, co-producerTerrace Martin said, "If you dig deeper you hear the lineage ofJames Brown,Jackie Wilson,Mahalia Jackson, the sounds of Africa, and our people when they started over here. I hear something different every time. I heard Cuban elements in it the other day."[5]
The album features contributions from the collective of musicians called theWest Coast Get Down, who experiment with jazz andprogressive hip-hop sounds, and feature Lamar, Flying Lotus, Martin, and saxophonistKamasi Washington, among others.[31] Consequently, the music is "jazz-like in spirit if not always in sound", according toBen Ratliff,[31] while Mosi Reeves fromDeadspin observes a virtuosic quality to its "prog-rap cornucopia".[32]Stereogum describedTo Pimp a Butterfly as an "ambitious avant-jazz-rap statement,"[33] andThe Source categorized the album as anexperimental hip-hop release.[34] Dan Weiss ofSpin noted "shades of Miles Davis'On the Corner andfree jazz all over [...], as well asSly Stone'sThere's a Riot Goin' On andFunkadelic andErykah Badu's similarly wah-crazy but comparatively lo-fiNew Amerykah (4th World War)," but stated nonetheless that "the sense of this album is vividly contemporary."[35] Other critics regard it as "throwback" toneo soul music of the 1990s.[36]Greg Kot ofChicago Tribune noted the album's affinities with previous black music, but argued that "Lamar takes familiar musical tropes into new territory."[28]The Atlantic noted the influence of collaborator Flying Lotus, writing that "his signature sound—jazz instrumentation and hip-hop layered into chaotic collages—is all over the album."[37] Steve Mallon ofThe Quietus noted an "eerily warpedpsychedelia bursting out of its idiosyncratic arrangements."[38]
Categorized byBillboard as a "politically-charged"conscious rap album,[39]To Pimp a Butterfly explores a variety of political and personal themes related to race, culture, and discrimination. CriticNeil Kulkarni said it appraises "the broken promises and bloody pathways in and out of America's heartland malaise".[40]Jay Caspian Kang observed elements ofcritical race theory,respectability politics,theology, andmeta-analysis examining Lamar's success and revered status in the hip-hop community.[41] It was compared byCalifornia State University, Fullerton professor Natalie Graham to the 1977 television miniseriesRoots.[42] While "Roots compresses and simplifies" black history, Graham saidTo Pimp a Butterfly "radically disrupt[s] meanings of black respectability, heroic morality, trauma, and memory".[42]
The album continues a nuanced dialogue about weighty topics that affect the African-American community. Releasing his album in a time of renewed black activism, Lamar's song "Alright" has become a rallying cry for theBlack Lives Matter movement.[46] With lyrics like "and we hate po-po / Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho, nigga", he makes it clear that he is supportive of the movement and the families of black men and women likeMichael Brown,Sandra Bland,Tamir Rice, and others who have fallen victim topolice brutality in the United States.[47] Lamar takes his opinions further to lend his position on black crime in the song "The Blacker the Berry", criticizing himself and his community by rapping, "So why did I weep whenTrayvon Martin was in the street? / When gang bangin' make me kill a nigga blacker than me?". Stereo Williams ofThe Daily Beast wrote in response to his lyrics that "it's dangerous to use that violence as a silencing tactic when the public is angry about the systematic subjugation of black people."[48]
Lamar has offered explanations of the meanings behind songs such as "Wesley's Theory" and "King Kunta".[49][50][51] The album's 1970s funk-inspired[52] opening track "Wesley's Theory" is a reference toWesley Snipes and how the actor was jailed fortax evasion; according to Lamar, "no one teaches poor black males how to manage money or celebrity, so if they do achieve success, the powers that be can take it from right under them".[49][50][51] "For Free? (Interlude)" sees Lamar rapping in a dense, spoken word-esque manner with musical accompaniment by jazz pianistRobert Glasper.[52]
"King Kunta" is concerned with the "history of negative stereotypes all African-Americans have to reconcile".[49][50][51] Lamar also explained his criticism of rappers who useghostwriters on "King Kunta", revealing that he came to prominence as a ghostwriter, and has respect for writers, but says that "as a new artist, you have to stand behind your work."[49][50][51]
"These Walls" has been described byBillboard as "pondering sex and existence in equal measure; it's ayoni metaphor about the power of peace, with sugar walls being escape and real walls being obstacles."[53] Lamar revealed that "U" was inspired by his own experience of depression andsuicidal thoughts.[54] He also mentioned feelings ofsurvivor's guilt as inspirations for the album.[55] "Alright" begins as a spoken-word treatise before exploding into a shapeshifting portrait of America that brings in jazz horns, skittering drum beats and Lamar's mellifluous rapping as he struggles with troubles and temptations.[56] Yet at the end of each verse, he reassures himself that "We gon' be alright"—a simple rallying cry for a nation reeling from gun violence and police brutality.[56] For critics a "celebration of being alive",[57] Lamar described "Alright" as a message of hope.[58] "The Blacker the Berry" features a "boom bap beat" and lyrics that celebrate Lamar's African-American heritage and "tackle hatred, racism, and hypocrisy head on."[59] The song'shook is performed by Jamaicandancehall artistAssassin, notable for performing on Kanye West's 2013 albumYeezus, whose lyrics similarly address racial inequality, specifically against African Americans.[60][61]
In the final track of the album, the 12-minute song "Mortal Man", Lamar reflects on everything he has explored throughout the album.[62] He delves into both historical and contemporary views on black identity, while also grappling with his own relationship with fame.[62] He repeats some of the album's most impactful lines, also addressing his misuse of power and the inner struggles he faces in managing his influence.[62] The song ends with an "interview" between Lamar andTupac Shakur which was recorded "using audio excerpts from a rare 1994 interview between Shakur and the host of Swedish radio show P3 Soul, Mats Nileskar".[63]
The album was originally going to be titledTu Pimp a Caterpillar, abackronym for Tu.P.A.C., itself an allusion to the rapper Tupac.[50] Lamar decided to replace "caterpillar" in the original title to "butterfly", which he explained in an interview forMTV, "I just really wanted to show the brightness of life and the word 'pimp' has so much aggression and that represents several things. For me, it represents using my celebrity for good. Another reason is, not being pimped by the industry through my celebrity ... It gets even deeper than that for me. I could be talking all day about it."[50] Lamar later also toldRolling Stone, "Just putting the word 'pimp' next to 'butterfly'... It's a trip. That's something that will be a phrase forever. It'll be taught in college courses—I truly believe that."[64]
The album's CD and vinyl releases included a booklet produced withbraille letterings; according to Lamar, these characters, when translated, reveal the "actual full title of the album."[65]Complex commissioned a braille translator, who found that it translated toA Kendrick by Letter Blank Lamar whichComplex noted was most likely supposed to read asA Blank Letter by Kendrick Lamar.[65][66]
The album's release was preceded by the release of two singles, "I", on September 23, 2014,[67] and "The Blacker the Berry" in February 2015.[68] The former became Lamar's sixth top-40 single on the USBillboard Hot 100 and was performed onSaturday Night Live.[69] "King Kunta" was released as the third single in March 2015,[70] and "Alright" was released to radio stations on June 30.[71] With the latter's release, several contemporary progressive news outlets, includingBET, raised the idea of "Alright" being the modernBlack National Anthem,[46][72][73] while the media reported youth-lead protests against police brutality across the country chanted the chorus of the song.[74][75] Primarily for the latter, Lamar was featured onEbony magazine's Power 100, an annual list that recognizes many leaders of the African-American community.[76] "These Walls" was released as the album's fifth single on October 13.[77] Aside from the singles' accompanying music videos, the song "For Free? (Interlude)" also featured visuals,[78] as did "U" with "For Sale? (Interlude)" as part of the short filmGod Is Gangsta.[79] In support of the album, Lamar embarked on the Kunta's Groove Sessions Tour, which included eight shows in eight cities during October and November.[80]
To Pimp a Butterfly was first released to theiTunes Store andSpotify on March 15, 2015, eight days ahead of its scheduled release date.[81] According to Anthony Tiffith, CEO ofTop Dawg Entertainment, the album's early release was unintentional, apparently caused by an error on the part ofInterscope Records.[82] The following day, it was made unavailable on iTunes, and the release was rescheduled for March 23, although it was still available forstreaming on Spotify.[83] In its first week of release,To Pimp a Butterfly debuted at number one onrecord charts in the United Kingdom, Australia,[84] and the United States, where it recorded first-week sales of 324,000 copies.[85] The album was streamed 9.6 million times in its first day on Spotify, setting the service's global first-day streaming record.[86] By the end of 2015,To Pimp a Butterfly was ranked the sixteenth most popular album on theBillboard 200 that year[87] and reached sales of one million copies worldwide.[88] By March 2016, it had sold 850,000 copies in the US,[89] where it was certifiedplatinum by theRecording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[90] In June 2017, it reached one million copies sold in the US.[91]
To Pimp a Butterfly was met with widespread critical acclaim. AtMetacritic, which assigns anormalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received anaverage score of 96, based on 44 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[93] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 9.3 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[92] According toGigwise writer Will Butler, it was universally hailed by critics as an "instant classic".[102]
Spin magazine's Dan Weiss regardedTo Pimp a Butterfly as the "Great American Hip-Hop Album" and an essential listen,[35] whileNeil McCormick fromThe Daily Telegraph called it a dense but dazzling masterpiece.[95] Writing forEntertainment Weekly, Kyle Anderson found the record twice as substantial as Lamar'sdebut major label album and more comprehensive ofAfrican-American music styles, with supremely "cinematic" production qualities but "the freedom of a mixtape".[26]Irish Times journalistJim Carroll deemed it "a record for the times we're in", in which Lamar transitioned from his past narratives about Compton to fierce but precise reflections on "black America".[97] InRolling Stone,Greg Tate deemedTo Pimp a Butterfly "a masterpiece of fiery outrage, deep jazz and ruthless self-critique" that along with D'Angelo's third albumBlack Messiah, made 2015 "the year radical Black politics and for-real Black music resurged in tandem to converge on the nation's pop mainstream."[100]Robert Christgau wrote in his review onCuepoint that not many artists were as passionate and understanding as Lamar, who offered "a strong, brave effective bid to reinstate hip hop as black America's CNN" during an era ofsocial media.[103]To Pimp a Butterfly also received a rare "10" rating fromYouTuber and music criticAnthony Fantano ofThe Needle Drop.[104][105][a]
Nonetheless, several reviews criticized some aspects of the album. For instance,New York Times criticJon Caramanica said Lamar still struggled in reconciling his density as a lyricist with the music he rapped over: "He hasn't outrun his tendency towards clutter [and] still runs the risk of suffocation."[106] InThe Guardian,Alexis Petridis found the music somewhat erratic and lamented "moments of self-indulgence" such as the twelve-minute "Mortal Man" and Lamar's reflections on fame.[96]
At the end of 2015,To Pimp a Butterfly was the most frequently ranked record in top ten lists of the year's best albums. According to Metacritic, it appeared 101 times in the top ten of lists published by critics, magazines, websites, and music stores.[107] The record topped 51 lists, including those byRolling Stone,Billboard,Pitchfork,Slant Magazine,Spin,The Guardian,Complex,Consequence,The Irish Times, andVice.[107]NME ranked it second on their list, whileTime named it the year's third best album.[108] It was voted the best album of 2015 in thePazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published byThe Village Voice.[109] Christgau, the Pazz & Jop's creator, ranked it fourth in his ballot for the poll.[110] The album placed ninth in British magazineThe Wire's annual critics' poll.[111]
On their lists of best albums of the decade,The Independent placed it first,[112]Consequence second,[113]Rolling Stone third,[114] andPitchfork fourth.[115] InThe Guardian's 2019 poll of 45 music journalists,To Pimp a Butterfly was voted the fourth best album of the 21st century, and contributing writer Ben Beaumont-Thomas said in an accompanying that, "as a celebration of the richness of black artistry, the whole album was a riposte to bigotry."[116] Similarly, in his March 2015 review of the album forThe Verge, editor and journalist Micah Singleton had hailed it as "the best album of the 21st century, the best hip-hop album sinceThe Notorious B.I.G.'sReady to Die andNas'Illmatic in 1994, and it cements Kendrick Lamar's spot as an all-time great."[117] TheTampa Bay Times placed the album as the second on their list of "The 10 Best Albums of the 2010s".[118] In September 2020,Rolling Stone released an updated version of their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list, based on the opinions of over 300 artists, music journalists, and industry insiders, which rankedTo Pimp a Butterfly as the 19th-best album of all time.[119]To Pimp a Butterfly became the No. 1 overall ranked album on music cataloging websiteRate Your Music in February 2023, surpassingRadiohead'sOK Computer (1997) with an average rating of 4.34 out of 5 at the time of reaching that spot.[120] In 2024,Paste rankedTo Pimp a Butterfly number 22 on its list of "The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time".[121]
The album's immediate influence was felt as "a pantheon for racial empowerment", according to Butler, who also argued that the record helped create a respected space for conscious hip-hop and "will be revered not just at the top of some list at the end of the year, but in the subconscious of music fans for decades to come".[102] Writing forHighsnobiety, Robert Blair said, "[To Pimp a Butterfly] is the crystallized moment in time where Kendrick became a generation's most potent artistic voice."[5]Uproxx journalist Aaron Williams said the album "proved that left-field, experimental rap can function in both the critical and commercial realms".[128] Jazz saxophonistKamasi Washington said that the album "changed music, and we're still seeing the effects of it [...] [the album] meant that intellectually stimulating music doesn't have to be underground. It just didn't change the music. It changed the audience."[5]To Pimp a Butterfly was an influence onDavid Bowie's 2016 albumBlackstar. As its producerTony Visconti recalled, he and Bowie were "listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar [...] we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn't do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do."[129]
^[d] "Momma" contains elements of "Wishful Thinking", written by Sylvester Stewart and performed bySly and the Family Stone; and elements and samples of "On Your Own", written byLalah Hathaway,Rahsaan Patterson, and Rex Rideout and performed by Lalah Hathaway.
^[e] "Hood Politics" contains a sample of "All for Myself", written and performed bySufjan Stevens.
^[g] "Mortal Man" contains excerpts from "I No Get Eye for Back", written byFela Anikulapo Kuti and performed by Houston Person; and featuring parts from the music journalist Mats Nileskär's November 1994 interview withTupac Shakur for P3 Soul inSveriges Radio P3.
^Kulkarni, Neil. "The Periodic Table of Hip Hop".Ebury/Penguin Publishing.
^King, Jay Caspian (March 24, 2015)."Notes on the Hip-Hop Messiah".The New York Times.Archived from the original on October 4, 2018. RetrievedOctober 4, 2018.
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