Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly [Gatefold] (2LP) Vinyl

Kendrick Lamar's third studio album, released on 15 March 2015 by Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records, and the follow-up to Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. This European pressing spreads the sixteen tracks across two LPs in a gatefold sleeve.

The Album

To Pimp A Butterfly took more than three years to make, recorded across studios in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C. and St Louis as well as on Lamar's tour bus. It runs to just under eighty minutes and draws heavily on jazz, funk and the soul music of the 1970s rather than conventional hip hop production. Far more live musicians and fewer samples were used than is normal for the genre, with a core team programming drums and playing bass, guitars and keyboards so that arrangements could be built in the studio. Guest contributions include George Clinton and Thundercat on "Wesley's Theory", Bilal, Anna Wise and Snoop Dogg on "Institutionalized", James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley on "How Much A Dollar Cost", and Rapsody on "Complexion (A Zulu Love)".

Sound and Mastering

Lamar wanted a vintage 1970s sound, so engineer Derek "MixedbyAli" Ali mixed the record on a console rather than in the box, working on the SSL 4000 G+ at No Excuses Studio in Santa Monica. Mixes were printed to half-inch analogue tape using an Ampex ATR102 machine, and the album was mastered from those tape reels by Mike Bozzi at Bernie Grundman Mastering.

Packaging

The two records are housed in a gatefold sleeve, with the inner spread carrying full credits and photography and the rear cover listing the running order by side. This edition was pressed by GZ Media and manufactured in the European Union under catalogue number 0602547311009.

Reception

The album entered at number one in both the UK and the United States, selling 324,000 copies in its first week in the US and giving Lamar his first UK number one. It won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album in 2016 and was nominated for Album of the Year. In 2020 Rolling Stone placed it nineteenth in its revised list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.