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Kendrick Lamar · S5 E2
The Jazz Sessions
Thundercat, Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington. Kendrick builds a band and throws away the rulebook
Kamasi Washington puts his saxophone to his lips and plays a run he's never played before. Behind him, Thundercat catches the note on his six-string bass, and Kendrick Lamar stops pacing and starts writing.
Thundercat, Them Changes (official music video, 2015). The bassist who anchored To Pimp a Butterfly at his most playful and virtuosic. This track came out of the same creative period as the TPAB sessions, and you can hear exactly why Kendrick needed him: a bass line that's equal parts funk, jazz, and something from another planet entirely.
Them Changes, Thundercat (2015)
Thundercat wrote this after a breakup, but the musicianship is pure TPAB DNA. The bass line is a descending funk groove played fingerstyle on his signature six-string bass, giving it that warm, rounded tone you hear all over Kendrick's album. The stacked vocal harmonies are all Thundercat, layered on top of each other until the sound feels weightless. Listen for how the song's sections bleed into each other instead of following a standard verse-chorus pattern.
Sources
Thundercat. "The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam." Brainfeeder, 2015.
“It wasn't a hip-hop session. It was a jazz session that happened to have a rapper in it. Everybody in one room, playing live, feeding off each other's energy.”
— Thundercat on the TPAB recording sessions, Pitchfork, 2015
Assembling the Band
Terrace Martin was the musical director. He brought in Kamasi Washington, a jazz saxophonist who was quietly recording his own three-hour opus The Epic during the same period. He called Thundercat, whose six-string bass had already caught Kendrick's ear on Flying Lotus sessions. Together, this crew turned a rap album into something that sounded like it was recorded at a jazz club at 2 AM.
Sources
NPR Music, "How Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp A Butterfly' Came Together," 2015
Kamasi Washington. "The Epic." Brainfeeder, 2015.
What unusual instrument does Thundercat play that helped define TPAB's sound?
TAP TO REVEAL: What was Kamasi Washington doing while recording saxophone for TPAB?
For Sale? (Interlude), Kendrick Lamar (2015)
The companion piece to "For Free?" and the opposite in every way. Where that interlude is frantic jazz chaos, this one is smooth, seductive piano luring Kendrick toward temptation. "Lucy," a recurring character across the album representing the devil and the music industry, makes her pitch. The jazz arrangement is understated and gorgeous, proof that these musicians could play quiet as powerfully as loud.
For Sale? (Interlude), Kendrick Lamar (2015)
Read the lyrics while you listen. "Lucy" is short for Lucifer, and she appears across multiple TPAB tracks as a seductive force pulling Kendrick away from his purpose. In this interlude, she's at her most convincing. Watch for the moment Kendrick's voice shifts from resistance to something that sounds dangerously close to giving in.
The Band
The band is locked in. Now Kendrick needs an opening track so radical that nobody can mistake this for good kid Part 2, and Flying Lotus has the beat. Next: Wesley's Theory.
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