A strange thing happened as Kendrick Lamar stepped to the microphone at the beginning of his sold-out Chicago show Thursday at the Riviera Theatre. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. The rapper spent the next few moments stifling a smile. It marked the first and last time Lamar hurt for words during the impressive 90-minute set.
Few contemporary artists have more to say — and express it with such from-the-gut passion — than Lamar. The Compton, Calif., native’s wide-ranging perspectives and stylistic ambitiousness run deep in his songs and albums, the most recent of which, “To Pimp a Butterfly,” is widely regarded as one of the year’s strongest efforts. Praised by critics and the mainstream, Lamar called his current, brief “groove sessions” tour of intimate venues the highlight of his career. Onstage, he also credited it with forcing him to “remember where (he) came from.” Not that he needed help with humility.
While modesty and hip-hop seldom mix, Lamar demonstrated they can coexist and thrive. His down-to-earth sensibility made his performance sharper, more emotional — and more human. He required no hype men or guests. Free of pretense or agenda, Lamar got right after the music. He chased his muse, searched his soul and cornered problems until they had no place to hide. Backed by a proficient four-piece band dubbed the Wesley Theory that featured three Chicago natives, the 28-year-old navigated a complex maelstrom of issues with equal parts density and elasticity, seriousness and fun.
Introspective and assertive, Lamar frequently spit lyrics with a rhythm that evoked a succession of Black Cat firecrackers popping off in a back alley. His fast deliveries and scat phrasing challenged fans to keep up with the messages. The velocity owed not to any desire to flaunt speed, but to the demands of tunes like the breathless “U” and claustrophobic “m.A.A.d City,” which exploded with detail and drama. Lamar balanced such shape-shifting intensity with mellower narratives (“Complexion (A Zulu Love)”) that seized on his quartet’s funk-splattered looseness.
Just as Lamar inhabited multiple roles, so, too, did the sonic backdrops, which ranged from trance-inducing soul-jazz to heavy, guitar-screaming rock. Paired with the rapper’s intellectual blend of poetry, protest, history, observation and reflection, the genre-blurring fusion came across as a modern update of liberating concepts Miles Davis pioneered on his hard-hitting “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” album. Fierce readings of “King Kunta” and “The Blacker the Berry” further heightened Lamar’s shrewd capacity to connect present conflicts to past struggles via heroic figures, be they the defiant slave, Nelson Mandela or Marcus Garvey.
Lamar seemingly took inspiration from them. Even as songs often implied that the more things change, the more they stay the same, he refused to stop dreaming. “We gonna be alright” he chanted along with the crowd singing his song “Alright” at the concert’s close, a proud conductor presiding over a survival-minded symphony.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.