The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America

Rapper Kendrick Lamar is a brilliant, possibly superhuman talent “destined for the Mount Rushmore of music” according to this gushing hagiography. Music journalist Moore recounts Lamar’s rise from gang-ridden Compton, Calif., to the top of the charts, covering such milestones as the song “Real,” which “represents Kendrick’s divine awakening”; Lamar’s 2015 BET Awards show performance, wherein “he became a symbol, no longer a rapper or anything mortal”; and his latest album, DAMN., with which, yet again, “he became something else, almost a mythical being or a supernova.” On the earthly plane Moore styles Lamar as the voice of oppressed Black people in a politicized interpretation that rehashes police killings and labels Donald Trump a white supremacist. Moore sometimes writes perceptively about Lamar’s music—“It evoked barbershop convos, the feel of shabby concrete beneath your fresh Nike sneakers, and the taste of fried chicken wings fresh out of the grease”—but too often wallows in vacuous praise. (In the studio making To Pimp a Butterfly: “Gone was the fast food; in were specialty salads and customized menus. The musicians all applaud Kendrick’s genius, saying that he’s a guy who doesn’t rest on his laurels.”) Anyone who doesn’t worship at the church of Lamar will likely be put off by the tedious puffery. (Oct.)