To Pimp a Butterfly

The sound

After good kid, m.A.A.d city made him a star, Kendrick went somewhere nobody expected. To Pimp a Butterfly is built on jazz, funk, soul and spoken word, with musicians like saxophonist Kamasi Washington, bassist Thundercat, producer Flying Lotus and funk legend George Clinton.

It came out on March 15, 2015, about a week earlier than planned.

What it’s about

Fame, money, depression, survivor’s guilt, race and power in America. A poem runs through the album, adding a few lines at a time, until he reads the whole thing at the end.

Alright

"Alright" became a protest anthem. In 2015, crowds at Black Lives Matter protests chanted its hook. At the BET Awards that year, Kendrick performed it standing on top of a graffiti-covered police car, and some TV pundits attacked him for it. He sampled one of their comments on his next album.

The Tupac ending

The final song, "Mortal Man", ends with Kendrick asking questions and Tupac answering, using audio from a 1994 interview. It feels like a passing of the torch.

The Grammys

At the 2016 Grammys, To Pimp a Butterfly got 11 nominations, the most ever for a rapper in one night. It won five, including Best Rap Album, but lost Album of the Year to Taylor Swift’s 1989.