Week 14 Reading Journal
11-11-13
Today I read about Big Sean. As far as Big Sean should be concerned, Kendrick Lamar picked a hell of a time to get pissed off. It wasn't too long ago that “Control” dropped like a nuclear bomb and imploded each end of the Internet’s social media universe. Nobody could even comprehend the balls it took to go after Every Important Rapper the genre has seen, sure, but the minute Lamar name-dropped his collaborator among his list of casualties…whoa, there.The song doesn't appear on Big Sean’s latest official full-length effort, Hall of Fame, but there’s something about the sentiment of both Lamar’s verse and the LP in question that says it should. Floating in a world over-saturated with hip-hop cliches, it’s not that the Detroit rapper doesn't set himself apart from the rest of the genre’s newest, youngest and best MCs with these 15 tracks (18 for you deluxe edition fans), it’s just that he doesn't set himself apart enough. For a guy who once sounded so hungry to rhyme his way out of the Motor City, essentially stalking Kanye West in order to land his spot among the industry’s in-crowd, he may have been best served had he taken down a note or two from Lamar’s School of Conflict and opted for a more bombastic approach toward crafting his second record.It’s odd, too, considering how adamant Sean was to steer clear of label boundaries and stay true to himself as an artist while compiling this set (or, at least so he said in walk-up interviews). Granted, there’s a lot here to be celebrated—the tracks as a whole are decidedly less hook-y than one may expect and there are moments the rapper offers that are on par with some of his best appearances in recent memory—but there’s still something inherently lacking from the whole thing’s aftertaste.