Almost all you
need to know about Compton, Dr. Dre's
first album in 16 years, can be gleaned from the first two seconds of the first
(actual) song, "Talk About It." What happens in those first two
seconds, and why are they important? A voice (not Dre's) shouts out "I
don't give one fuck!"
That's it.
But really,
that's the album in a snapshot, both for good and bad. Despite being a Dr. Dre
album, his voice is only there about half the time, and he really doesn't give
one fuck about what anyone thinks. The latter is all to the good, because it
allows Dre to discard any sense of responsibility to previous works or commitments
(RIP Detox) and just flex his musical
muscles. As for the former, well, it is a Dre album, so it leans heavy on guest
vocalists – he's been that way for a while. Go with it.
I'm happy to
report that Dre is still as invested as ever in creating lush and dynamic
sonicscpaes for the listener to roll through, and this might be his crowning
achievement as a sonic architect. The tracks warble and mutate halfway through,
and only a few end up at the place they started. Dre is playing with a lot of
source material, and you can hear his eagerness to explore – whether that's the
sped up soul samples, à la Kanye, of "It's All On Me," the J Dilla
funk of "Satisfiction," or the rock-riffs of "One Shot One
Kill," everything just sounds amazing and crisp. And the horns! Holy shit,
the horns on this album just slay, over and over. Compton stands alongside Jamie xx's as the best sounding thing
you'll hear all year, and driving around with it blaring out of your speakers
will make you feel like a king among men. Try it.
What is perhaps
most interesting about Compton is how
topical it is. Sure, there are some of the shit-talking, hard-slapping bangers
that Dre can produce in his sleep, but it's fascinating to hear him tackle the
issues facing the black population – especially young men – currently. There's
the skit at the end of "Deep Water," where a drowning man wails that
he can't breathe (an explicit reference to Eric Garner's death at the hands of
New York police) and numerous references to the dangers of any interaction with
police for people of color. And then there's "Animals," which is
about as close to a protest song as Dre has written since his N.W.A days. On
the song Dre works with DJ Premier to bring that 90's bounce to the beat, as he
laments the portrayal of African Americans in the media. Lines like, "And
please don't come around these parts/And tell me that we all a bunch of
animals./The only time they wanna turn the cameras on/Is when we're fuckin'
shit up, come on," vividly points out the biases and double standards in
the media when dealing with people of color; for example, the way networks
always posting the most "thug" photos of black men they can find,
instead of graduation or family photos.
I'm not sure if
it's because of the scenario facing so many men like him, or if he's just
invigorated to be in the booth again, but Dre's rhymes are some of his best
throughout, especially when he gets personal on tracks like album closer,
"Talking to My Diary." There's an elasticity to his flows and
delivery that sounds like he's been listening to a lot of his protégé, Kendrick
Lamar (and Dre is famous for writing his rhymes with others, so Lamar may have
had his hands on a lot of these lyrics).
Let's stop to
talk about King Kendrick for a minute, because holy fuck, the guy is just on
fire here. If you didn't already think this way (first off, shame on you), Compton shows why the most exciting
thing you can hear on a song these days is Kendrick Lamar rapping, and he's at
his fiercest here. He totally makes "Genocide" the best song here
(thought the fantastic, oscillating beat pretty much ensured that), and his
lightning fast flows and parallel imagery will completely blow your mind. In a
way, the album feels like Dre's response to Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, which is about as big a compliment as Lamar
could receive.
Lamar isn't the
only one bringing his A-game here; Dre's early collaborators Snoop Dogg and Ice
Cube sound bigger and badder than they have in ages, and its particularly
invigorating to hear Snoop ditch his goofy uncle vibe, and bring back that
killer attitude that made him great in the first place. His steely growl and
flaming lines on "One Shot One Kill" will make you want to lob cars
through buildings, it's that exciting. Newcomers like King Mez (the source of
that "fuck you" that opens the album), BJ the Chicago Kid and
Anderson Paak fully seize the opportunity Dre provides them with, and you can
expect to hear a lot more from all of them soon.
Compton is
certainly not a perfect album, and perhaps it's because it's so good that the
missteps feel so glaring. The most prominent being the skit at the end of
"Loose Cannons," which features some guy shooting his girlfriend, as
she screams in terror. I would be more okay with it if it was some kind of
comment about the pressures and extremes living in the dire economic situations
in Compton create, but any attempt to derive a deeper statement is undercut by
the "funny" conclusion to the skit. This is not the kind of shit that
should be glorified, but there it is anyway. The other misstep comes, not
surprisingly, from Eminem. In his verse in "Medicine Man," he boasts,
"I even make the bitches I rape cum," and that's just reprehensible,
even if he is just trying to be provocative. Eminem is an artist I've always
respected from a skill level, but felt he never had much soul, and this kind of
shit is why. It's a shame because I really dig the rest of his verse, but that
line just nullifies it.
After 16 years,
most people had resigned themselves to never hearing a new album from Dre, so
the fact that we have Compton to pour
over and debate is, in itself, kind of a dream. The fact that the thing goes
this hard and is this solid throughout makes it something else – one of the
year's best rap albums.
Compton is
out on Aftermath/Interscope.
Also recommended this week:
2 Chainz's newest
mixtape, Trap-A-Velli 3.
Wondaland Presents: The Eephus – EP, a mix from Janelle Monàe's record
label, featuring "Classic Man."
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