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A review by knod78
Promise That You Will Sing about Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar by Miles Marshall Lewis, Miles Marshall Lewis
2.0
I will preface this review with I'm not a huge fan of Kendrick Lamar. Like the author, I grew up with rap and hip hop artists who influenced Kendrick. Like him, I also stopped really listening to that music and other genres, because they were tired and their lyrics mostly shit. I just never came back. I entered this giveway for two reasons: my cousin is a huge fan and I really was fascinated by the first rapper to ever get a Pullitzer Prize award. It was amazing.
Even though the summary book talks of this, this book is not that at all. Don't expect it. I was disappointed in this book for that reason. In fact, the album that won him the award was not discussed in detail like MAAD City. The layout and content was all over the place. I didn't really get the point of this book. Hood Politics which I thought was an interesting chapter was put in the very beginning and then repeated again for Chapter 2. I'm not sure why. There was no consistency and some of the pages I couldn't read due to faded text or gray text on a gray / black background. It was also one of the few times I felt the author put too much of himself into this story. At one point, he went on a tangent about east coast vs west coast and then he decided he liked west coast on a road trip to Atlanta. It went on longer than that though.
I did learn a lot of great music history and I did learn more about Kendrick Lamar. Just not what I wanted. I had some nostalgia and got out some old playlists to listen to some music of my youth. I also picked up a few new artists who I added to the list. I'm sure if you are a big fan (like my cousin), you might like this book, but the inconsistency of the text and page and content turned me off to recommend this book wholeheartedly.
Even though the summary book talks of this, this book is not that at all. Don't expect it. I was disappointed in this book for that reason. In fact, the album that won him the award was not discussed in detail like MAAD City. The layout and content was all over the place. I didn't really get the point of this book. Hood Politics which I thought was an interesting chapter was put in the very beginning and then repeated again for Chapter 2. I'm not sure why. There was no consistency and some of the pages I couldn't read due to faded text or gray text on a gray / black background. It was also one of the few times I felt the author put too much of himself into this story. At one point, he went on a tangent about east coast vs west coast and then he decided he liked west coast on a road trip to Atlanta. It went on longer than that though.
I did learn a lot of great music history and I did learn more about Kendrick Lamar. Just not what I wanted. I had some nostalgia and got out some old playlists to listen to some music of my youth. I also picked up a few new artists who I added to the list. I'm sure if you are a big fan (like my cousin), you might like this book, but the inconsistency of the text and page and content turned me off to recommend this book wholeheartedly.