KENDRICK LAMAR – LIVE: REVIEW

Very much not Drake.

KENDRICK LAMAR

Allianz Stadium, Sydney, December 10

KENDRICK LAMAR DOESN’T WANT to be a pop star, but he doesn’t not want to be one either.

Take the flames left and right and two absolutely huge screens, the sparkly-framed glasses and a posse of dancers, the giant furry dice with scented tree ornament and the scaled-up stairs on an otherwise bare stage, the crack of fireworks like cannons and a whispered start with Lamar muttering in the shadows backstage, and the powerful, crisp, clear and just-short-of-overwhelming sound.

All point to production values of a mega pop show. All simple but effective manipulations of an environment effectively inhabited by only one non-dancing, rarely-speaking, charismatic but un-demonstrative man.

But then what is King Kunta but a knee-cracking pop song? Even, or maybe especially in, this condensed version, followed with the skittish, swirling cinematic noir of Element. How many hooks are as elemental as Squabble Up’s barebone lean/shuffle, brought to life by those dancers and given voice by the whole stadium, or the brass-bolstered TV Off, split into two parts, an hour apart, but still kept whole? How many stiff-legged grooves are as welcome to people who can’t necessarily dance but can strut in their seats as that offered in Humble?

Kendrick Lamar doesn’t want to be some generational spokesman, but he doesn’t not want to be one either.

Sure, the lubricious Poetic Justice was primarily focused on matters horizontal but the same territory in the old school soul groove of Dodger Blue was laced with unceremonial frankness, and Good Credit crept into darker corners. M.A.A.D City peeled back urban sheets and showed how everything runs on tension, and within the folding-in-on-itself progressive bass and counterweight keyboards of Reincarnated was a dense story that was always racing away with his delivery but still landed punch after punch about being that very modern creature, the uncertain adult in a childlike world.

(Speaking of which, one thing Lamar very much does want to be is Drake Disser In Chief. Still. See both the shot early in the show, Euphoria, and the stronger chaser to close the set, Not Like Us. Kendrick, that man is down, boxed up and posted already.)

Interestingly, that his voice is the lowest profile of the on-stage sounds is ultimately irrelevant as it seems pretty clear that if you don’t already know each word of these songs, if you can’t match Lamar’s rapid articulateness, you aren’t serious, you aren’t meant to be here. Kendrick Lamar doesn’t want to be exclusive, but he doesn’t not want to either.

Got a problem with that? To borrow from the man, “Put the Bible down and go eye for an eye for it.”

A version of this review was originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald