FEATURE:
The Blacker the Berry
Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly at Ten
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ONE of the biggest albums…
PHOTO CREDIT: John Francis Peters for The New York Times
of the 2010s has an anniversary coming up on 15th March. Kendrick Lamar’s third studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly, turns ten. A move up and switch from Lamar’s 2012 album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly blends Jazz, Funk, Hip-Hop, Soul and other genres. It was his most ambitious and eclectic album to that date. Lamar focuses on politics, inequality, racial tensions and depression. It is both personal and universal. It is no surprise that it was highly acclaimed by critics. Ahead of its tenth anniversary, I wanted to spotlight a masterpiece from one of Hip-Hop’s legends and leaders. A number one album in the U.S. and U.K., To Pimp a Butterfly features contributions from George Clinton, Snoop Dogg, Rapsody, Dr. Dre, George Clinton and a range of wonderful musicians and producers. An album that was compared to the best work of Sly and the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, many noted how Kendrick Lamar was angrier than them. In terms of highlighting the realities of modern America. The racism and inequality that remains. A fearless album with an immense scope, it still sound so relevant a decade later. At a time when America is changing and Donald Trump is President once more, you feel like the themes Kendrick Lamar addresses are back under the spotlight. I am going to come to a few reviews of To Pimp a Butterfly before finishing up with a feature that discusses the legacy and impact of Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus. Celebrating a dense, mournful, powerful, wry and theatrical follow-up to good kid, m.A.A.d city, this is what Pitchfork observed about a modern Hip-Hop masterpiece:
“Kendrick Lamar’s major-label albums play out like Spike Lee films in miniature. In both artists’ worlds, the stakes are unbearably high, the characters’ motives are unclear, and morality is knotty, but there is a central force you can feel steering every moment. The “Good and Bad Hair” musical routine from Lee’s 1988 feature School Daze depicted Black women grappling with colorism and exclusionary standards of American beauty. Mookie’s climactic window smash in 1989’s Do the Right Thing plunged its characters into fiery bedlam, quietly prophesying the coming L.A. riots in the process. In these moments, you could feel the director speaking to you directly through his characters and their trajectories. Lamar’s records, while crowded with conflicting ideas and arguing voices, have a similar sense of a guiding hand at work.
Lamar’s new album, To Pimp a Butterfly, doesn’t explicitly bill itself as a movie like Good Kid, M.A.A.D City did, but the network of interlocking dramas explored here feels filmic nonetheless, and a variety of characters appear across the album’s expanse. The opener, “Wesley’s Theory,” turns the downfall of action-star-turned-convicted-tax-dodger Wesley Snipes into a kind of Faustian parable. Snoop drops by on “Institutionalized”; Dre himself phones in on “Wesley.” The mood is wry, theatrical, chaotic, ironic, and mournful, often all at once: On “For Free? (Interlude)” an impatient woman ticks off a laundry list of material demands before Kendrick snaps back that “This dick ain’t free!” and thunders through a history of Black oppression, spoken-word style, as if to say, “This money you crave, it’s blood money.” The album is dotted with surreal grace notes, like a parable: God appears in the guise of a homeless man in “How Much a Dollar Cost,” and closer “Mortal Man” ends on a lengthy, unnerving fever-dream interview with the ghost of 2Pac.
The music, meanwhile, follows a long line of genre-busting freakouts (The Roots’ Phrenology, Common’s Electric Circus, Q-Tip’s Kamaal the Abstract, André 3000’s The Love Below) in kicking at the confines of rap music presentation. There’s half a jazz band present at all times; pianist Robert Glasper, producer/sax player Terrace Martin and bass wizard Thundercat give Butterfly a loose, fluid undertow every bit as tempestuous and unpredictable as the army of flows at Kendrick’s disposal. The rapper’s branching out, too, exploding into spastic slam poetry on “For Free?,” switching from shouty gymnastics to drunken sobs on “U” and even effecting the lilt of a caring mother on “You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said).” It turns out Kendrick’s new direction was every direction at once.
Despite all this, he’s still toying with a narrative on the sly: Just beneath the surface lies a messianic yarn about avoiding the wiles of a sultry girl named Lucy who’s secretly a physical manifestation of the devil. Kendrick refuses to dole out blame without accepting any, however, and on the chaotic free jazz excursion “U” he turns a mirror on himself, screaming, “Loving you is complicated!” and suggesting his fame hasn’t helped his loved ones back home. Kendrick’s criticisms, as they did on Good Kid, come with powerful, self-imposed challenges. As Bilal quips on the chorus to “Institutionalized”: “Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass, nigga.”
Kendrick’s principle of personal responsibility has treaded dangerously close to respectability politics lately, especially after a prickly remark about the Mike Brown shooting in a recent Billboard interview that seemed to pin the death on the victim, but To Pimp a Butterfly avoids that trap. (Mostly.) “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” is a tender note of appreciation for women of all skin tones with help from North Carolina rapper Rapsody (whose slickly referential guest verse contains a nod to “Good and Bad Hair”). This is an album about tiny quality of life improvements to be made in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. It might not be the message we want in a year where systemic police and judicial inequality have cost many the ultimate price, but that doesn’t bankrupt it of value.
To Pimp a Butterfly pivots on the polarizing lead single, “I.” Upon release last autumn, the sunny soul pep talk came off lightweight and glib. When it appears deep in the back end of Butterfly, though, “I” plays less like the jingle we heard last year and more like the beating heart of the matter. To push the point, the album opts for a live-sounding mix that ditches out midway through, giving way to a speech from the rapper himself. In tone, the speech is not unlike the legendary 1968 concert where James Brown waved off security and personally held off a Boston audience’s fury after news broke that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. “How many niggas we done lost, bro?” Kendrick shouts over the crowd. “It shouldn’t be shit for us to come out here and appreciate the little bit of life we got left.” Underneath the tragedy and adversity, To Pimp a Butterfly is a celebration of the audacity to wake up each morning to try to be better, knowing it could all end in a second, for no reason at all”.
The Verge were full of love and passion for Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015. Saluting Black America’s Poet Laurette, they had no notes. In the sense the album is perfect. Their observations are illuminating and thought-provoking. It is evident that this album has an incredible legacy. If you have not heard this album before then make sure you do right away:
“To Pimp a Butterfly isn’t just another album, and Kendrick Lamar isn’t just another rapper. Kendrick is different. His first major label album, good kid, m.A.A.d city is one of the greatest rap albums of all time. The last two artists who debuted with albums that redefined the genre were Kanye West (The College Dropout) and Jay Z (Reasonable Doubt). Good kid, m.A.A.d city, was an autobiographical masterpiece that vocalized the struggle of growing up in dire circumstances in Compton and how it affected Kendrick’s perception of the world. It was brilliant and clever, a concept album that still told Kendrick’s "how I got here" story. He could have used the same blueprint for his second album. It worked once, and Kendrick is talented enough to make use of it again. Rappers rapping about their upbringing will never end, but Kendrick Lamar isn’t conventional in the least.
We knew Kendrick was going with a new concept for this album. It wasn’t going to be your traditional 808-laden, two-club-hits-and-a-love-song hip-hop album. But Kendrick was never that to begin with. It was going to be soulful — conscious as they say. He gave us "i" back in September, an uplifting track about self-love — there’s an updated (see: much better) version of "i" on the album that sampled The Isley Brothers. We got a taste of the new musical arrangements back in December on The Colbert Report when he performed an untitled song that if released would probably have been the best song of 2014 (it didn’t even make the album). Then we got the artwork for To Pimp a Butterfly. If the direction of the album wasn’t clear before, it was now. This is about to be some social commentary / Black Excellence music. I wasn’t scared that Kendrick would deliver a flop. I was afraid that he would only dip a toe into the pool of Black Excellence music, that he would hesitate to speak on social issues, or succumb to label pressure to provide a few radio-friendly records. He didn’t. Not one bit.
To Pimp a Butterfly is perfect. There’s no other adjective that can properly convey its greatness. To Pimp a Butterfly is an immaculate amalgamation of rap, jazz, funk, soul, and spoken word. It cannot be restricted by a single genre. It’s the latest evolution of Black Music, and it’s nothing short of genius. (Black Music, inhabited by the likes of Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, Prince, the Fugees, Andre 3000, and D’Angelo. A land where the natural barriers of music don’t exist. A place where the main goal is the advancement and protection of the culture.)
Crafted with a live band consisting of Bilal, Thundercat, Terrace Martin, and Anna Wise — all talented artists in their own right — To Pimp a Butterfly pulls no punches. The first track, "Wesley’s Theory" featuring George Clinton and Thundercat and produced by Flying Lotus sets the tone, opens with a sample of Boris Gardiner’s 1974 song "Every Nigger is a Star." On "Wesley’s Theory" Kendrick tackles consumerism and rampant debt that plagues black entertainers, something that he has (so far) seemingly avoided. Speaking first from the perspective of a young black musician forecasting his downfall into the trap of wealth and greed ("When I get signed, homie I'mma act a fool / Hit the dance floor, strobe lights in the room"), and then from the perspective of "Uncle Sam" who encourages him to buy everything on credit ("What you want you? / A house or a car? / Forty acres and a mule, a piano, a guitar? / Anything, see, my name is Uncle Sam on your dollar / Motherfucker you can live at the mall").
To Pimp a Butterfly succeeds D’Angelo’s Black Messiah as the most important album in black culture right now. In the face of Ferguson, police brutality, and widening economic disparity, Kendrick Lamar tackles social issues through music and does so exceptionally well. It’s a dark album for dark times, right in line with recent projects from Drake and Big Sean, but To Pimp a Butterfly is miles ahead of the competition in its quality and its message.
On "For Free", Kendrick employs spoken word with double and triple entendres better than Jay Z could ever dream of doing. The song is unbelievably complex. It can be interpreted as chastisement of America for its treatment of African Americans, or a Black Excellence anthem, or just as a fight with a girlfriend. It’s a true work of art whose meaning will be debated for years. "For Free" is To Pimp a Butterfly encapsulated in one song. There is no single definition of this album. There is no single genre. There is no single flow. It is unlike anything I’ve heard before.
"u," produced by Sounwave, is a direct contrast to the uplifting "i." Kendrick is speaking to himself, depressed and broken, repeating the hook 10 times ("Loving you is complicated"), and admonishing himself, despite his accomplishments. With "u" and "i," Kendrick depicts the struggle of expressing black self-love better than any artist has done in recent memory — the highs and lows, the inner joy, the self-hate, the bravado, the blame. Kendrick told Rolling Stone "u" was one of the toughest songs he’d ever written. "There [are] some very dark moments in there. All my insecurities and selfishness and letdowns. That shit is depressing as a motherfucker. But it helps, though. It helps." Sequencing is crucial on To Pimp a Butterfly— right after "u" we get the anthemic "Alright" to pull us out of the doldrums. And that it does.
Even though it’s not an album designed for a wide audience ("I’m not talking to people from the suburbs. I’m talking as somebody who’s been snatched out of cars and had rifles pointed at me," Kendrick told The New York Times), To Pimp a Butterfly has wide appeal, thanks to the excellent beats and production that inject energy into consequential records. The funky bass line turns deep records like "King Kunta" into party songs. "Alright," produced by Pharrell Williams, is a certified hit rap-along. The jazzy "Complexion (A Zulu Love)" featuring Rapsody will make your grandmother shimmy, even with its powerful lyrics ("Dark as the midnight hour, I'm bright as the mornin' sun / Brown skinned, but your blue eyes tell me your mama can't run").
To Pimp a Butterfly is the best album of the 21st century, the best hip-hop album since Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die and Nas’ Illmatic in 1994, and it cements Kendrick Lamar’s spot as an all-time great. Those whispered conversations about Kendrick’s spot in hip-hop history can begin in earnest. The last artist who debuted with two classic albums was Notorious B.I.G. That’s where we’re at. That’s where Kendrick Lamar has brought us”.
The immediate impact of To Pimp a Butterfly is explored in this Wikipedia article. The fact that it is inspired artists like David Bowie shows how powerful and important it was. An album, as mentioned, that it is still relevant. The world not learning from Kendrick Lamar’s words. I hope tenth anniversary retrospective leads to cultural and political change:
“The album's immediate influence was felt as "a pantheon for racial empowerment", according to Butler, who also argued that the record helped create a respected space for conscious hip-hop and "will be revered not just at the top of some list at the end of the year, but in the subconscious of music fans for decades to come". Writing for Highsnobiety, Robert Blair said, "[To Pimp a Butterfly] is the crystallized moment in time where Kendrick became a generation's most potent artistic voice.” Uproxx journalist Aaron Williams said the album "proved that left-field, experimental rap can function in both the critical and commercial realms". Jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington said that the album "changed music, and we're still seeing the effects of it [...] [the album] meant that intellectually stimulating music doesn't have to be underground. It just didn't change the music. It changed the audience." To Pimp a Butterfly was an influence on David Bowie's 2016 album Blackstar. As its producer Tony Visconti recalled, he and Bowie were "listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar [...] we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn't do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do”
I am going to finish off in a minute. I wanted to highlight this Rolling Stone review. The Compton-born MC’s second major label album is full of “fiery outrage, deep jazz and ruthless self-critique”. Without doubt one of the best albums of the 2010s. Some might say Kendrick Lamar reached the same peak on 2017’s DAMN. and 2024’s GNX:
“Hashtag this one Portrait of the Artist as a Manchild in the Land of Broken Promises. Thanks to D’Angelo’s Black Messiah and Kendrick Lamar‘s To Pimp a Butterfly, 2015 will be remembered as the year radical Black politics and for-real Black music resurged in tandem to converge on the nation’s pop mainstream. Malcolm X said our African ancestors didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us. The cover of Lamar’s second major-label LP flips that maxim with a fantasia of bare-chested young hoodrocks flashing cash and booze on the White House grounds, Amerikkka’s Most Unwanted victoriously swarming a toppled symbol of pale-skinned patriarchy.
The party begins in earnest with George Clinton’s blessings and bassist Thundercat’s love for Bootsy Collins. “Wesley’s Theory” is a disarming goof that’s also a lament for the starry-eyed innocence lost to all winners of the game show known as Hip-Hop Idol. “Gather your wind, take a deep look inside,” Clinton says. “Are you really who they idolize?” Lamar’s got plenty of jokes and jeremiads to launch at himself, us and those malevolent powers that be. “I want you to recognize that I’m a proud monkey,” he raps later on. “You vandalize my perception, but can’t take style from me.”
He’s also made hella room for live jazz improv on this furthermucker, from the celestial keys of virtuoso pianist Robert Glasper to the horns of Terrace Martin and Kamasi Washington to Thundercat’s low end. Black Musicians Matter majorly here – their well-tempered orchestral note-worrying a consistent head-nod toward Sun Ra, which producers including Flying Lotus and Lamar’s right-hand Sounwave smush into a lush volcanic riverbed of harmonic cunning and complexity. Only a lyricist of Lamar’s skills, scope, poetics and polemics would dare hop aboard it and dragon-glide. His virtuosic slam-poetic romp across bebop blues changes on “For Free?” harkens back to LA’s Freestyle Fellowship.
Clearly, this is Lamar’s moment to remake rap in his own blood-sick image. If we’re talking insurgent content and currency, Lamar straight up owns rap relevancy on Butterfly, whatever challengers to the throne barely visible in his dusty rear-view. He relishes and crushes the gift he’s been handed by CNN in the national constabulary’s now weekly-reported racist tactics, 21st-century apartheid American style: “It’s a new gang in town, from Compton to Congress/…Ain’t nothing new but a flow of new Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-licans.” This tactic is nowhere more resonant than on the studio-rigged beyond-the-grave convo with 2Pac he conjures up on ”Mortal Man,” letting Pac deliver the album’s most-fatalist mad-prophetic zinger: ”Next time it’s a riot, there’s gonna be bloodshed for real. . .I think America thinks we was just playing, but it’s gonna be murder. . .like Nat Turner 1831 up in this muthafucka.”
But Lamar’s own fears of assuming a messiah position are upfront and personal. “I been wrote off before, I got abandonment issues,” he says on “Mortal Man.” “How many leaders you said you needed then left ’em for dead?/Is it Moses, is it Huey Newton, or Detroit Red?” You can imagine Chuck D or Dead Prez going in as hard and witty against white supremacy as Lamar does on “The Blacker the Berry” and “King Kunta” – but you can’t picture them exposing the vulnerability, doubt and self-loathing swag heard on ”Complexion (A Zulu Love),” “u,” “For Sale?” and “i.” What makes Lamar’s bully pulpit more akin to Curtis Mayfield’s or Gil Scott Heron’s than any protest MC before him is the heart worn on his hoodie’s sleeves”.
I am going to end up by quoting heavily from a 2020 retrospective feature from High Snobiety. They wrote about how Kendrick Lamar’s masterpiece changed music, culture and lives. Go and invest some time in this album today. It is such a moving and unforgettable listen:
“The beginning of 2015 was a transitionary period for hip-hop. As much of the East Coast’s new breed mourned A$AP YAMS, Pro Era’s Joey Bada$$ was coming of age on his major label debut. Heading southward, internal conflict between Lil Wayne and Birdman became public knowledge, while Young Money’s golden child Drake racked up another triumph with If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.
Amid these tremulous events, and with Big Sean’s Dark Sky Paradise holding court at the top of the charts, a crucial component of what made the genre vital was missing. Previously defined by Chuck D as “black America’s CNN,” most of the biggest hip-hop albums in recent years had felt apolitical or, at worst, consciously apathetic.
Lacking its informative might, hip-hop’s retreat from the frontlines of social discourse was incongruous at a time when Black Lives Matter’s hashtag activism and police brutality demonstrations had reached a fever pitch. Overrun by triviality and self-obsession, relief would come in March 2015, courtesy of a Compton-born artist who used his platform as his forebears had intended. Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly arrived with the force of a sledgehammer, remaining just as (if not more) impactful now as it did on first arrival.
“I started this album already knowing what I wanted to talk about, just based off the idea of feeling like you’re being pimped and manuevered in the industry,” Lamar reflected to MTV. “Thinking ‘how can I make that something positive for my community?’ As I’m doing this, all these events are happening. Trayvon, Ferguson… I couldn’t write these songs after these events, it’s too intricate.”
Rather than mimicking the formula that had taken him from obscurity to superstardom with Good Kid M.A.A.D City, Kendrick funneled his energy into crafting a musically and thematically rich project which surveyed a crumbling society and all of its grotesque, systemic ills.
Nowadays, most albums are ingested by their intended audience before being discarded to the wayside. Routinely overloaded with material in order to flood the market and maximize streaming revenue, everything from Drake's Scorpion to Migos' Culture II has lived and died on the strength of name recognition as opposed to a clearly-defined sense of purpose. Yet in the case of Kendrick’s enthralling Butterfly, the project has refracted in so many directions over the past five years that its allure and central message has only magnified with time.
No enduring piece of artistry was made without a degree of risk. But when it came to the musicality of Butterfly, Lamar threw caution to the wind like few before or since. Dabbling with horns and other brassy inflections on both his breakout mixtape Section 80 and Good Kid M.A.A.D City, Kendrick renounced the relative safety of the 808-laden bombast that defined his work in favor of a sound that more closely resembled the former project’s "Ab-Soul Outro." A fusion of hip-hop and jazz orchestrated by Terrace Martin, it was this decorated multi-instrumentalist who first acknowledged Kendrick’s unconscious tendencies.
“He was like, man, a lot of the chords that you pick are jazz-influenced,” Lamar told GQ. “You don't understand: You a jazz musician by default... he just started breaking down everything, the science, going back to Miles, Herbie Hancock.”
Incorporating dashes of blues, soul, funk and spoken word, Butterfly’s emphasis on eclecticism culminated in a sound that essentially doubled as a whistle-stop tour through the history of black music in America. After unveiling The Isley Brothers-sampling, self-love anthem "i" as a prelude to the album, Ron Isley and Kendrick discussed “the experiences his mother had with our records” that wouldd pave the way for his contribution to the sorrowful album-cut "How Much a Dollar Cost?"
Meanwhile, another icon was forced to place his preconceived biases aside while at work on the project. Before providing an uproarious vocal on the Flying Lotus-produced “Wesley’s Theory," P-Funk originator George Clinton had only heard Good Kid’s "Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe" and thought "it sounded silly as hell.” After grasping Kendrick’s vision, his perception changed, stating “he was saying things in brand new metaphors that I knew was going to fuck people up.” Operating in a reciprocal space between genres, time periods, and demographics, this intersectionality would be key in sculpting both the album as well as the diverging branches of its legacy.
“[Butterfly] changed music, and we’re still seeing the effects of it,” proclaimed Lamar-collaborator turned jazz titan Kamasi Washington. “It meant that intellectually stimulating music doesn’t have to be underground. It just didn’t change the music. It changed the audience."
By enlisting virtuosos who were “as fluent in J Dilla and Dr. Dre as in Mingus and Coltrane,” Butterfly uplifted the careers of those who aided in its inception while simultaneously broadening the scope of what modern hip-hop can co-mingle with. Prior to Butterfly’s arrival, the swell in non-specialized engagement with jazz that precipitated Washington’s instant notoriety on 2015's The Epic wouldn’t have been imaginable, while Rapsody’s verse on "Complexion (A Zulu Love)" had a similar effect in plucking the Carolina MC from obscurity. Now revered as a generational great, she’s been candid with DJ Booth about how “everything snowballed” after she accepted the summons from K-Dot.
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Scott Dudelson
Enlisted as both a musical focal point and a welcome flourish throughout, no one reaped the rewards of their toil on Butterfly quite like Thundercat. “Pretty much on the entire album,” the presence of his bass at the heart of the project raised his profile to such an extent that 2017’s Drunk peaked 144 chart places higher than his previous albums. On a personal level, the profound effect the album had on him far outweighed any success that it’s yielded since: “I just broke down in tears when I got home after hearing it,” Thundercat recalled. “So much information was passed and conveyed... There wasn’t a misfire. Everybody put their best work forward, and you could feel it, I think.”
As we now know, this was an understatement on his part. Rather than just feeling it, Butterfly became a conduit through which the disenfranchised and grief-stricken contextualized their own experiences. No where was this more evident than the liberating refrain of "Alright." Essentially a "The Times They Are a-Changin'" for the era of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and Alton Sterling, it became a familiar rallying cry at Black Lives Matter demonstrations, as well as emanating from speakers in suburbs and section-8 housing alike. Unsurprised by its resonance, Kendrick felt that the song’s jubilant tone amid such injustice tapped into an ancestral coping mechanism.
“Four hundred years ago, as slaves, we prayed and sang joyful songs to stay level-headed with what was going on," Lamar told NPR. “We still need that music to heal. And I think that 'Alright' is definitely one of those records."
Defiant and rousing yet quietly cognizant of the uphill battles that still need to be waged, "Alright" isn’t a piece of music so much as a public service announcement appealing for calm amid a time of crisis. A record that he was “sitting on” for six months after Pharrell crafted the now iconic instrumental, Kendrick’s cultural presence grew alongside the track and, in turn, allowed him to understand how its power surpassed all traditional barometers for a ‘hit’ song.
Tackling hypocrisy, drug abuse, societal entrapment, mental health, imposter syndrome, and Demo-Crips & Re-Blood-licans across the project’s immersive hour-plus runtime, To Pimp a Butterfly was rightly awarded the Grammys that had previously eluded him, and it was instrumental in informing David Bowie’s final album Blackstar. Yet while the late icon and producer Tony Visconti strived to “avoid rock & roll,” Butterfly wasn’t born of some self-congratulatory whim to stretch artistic horizons. Instead, it aimed to expand minds and empower those who had borne the brunt of this uncaring and hostile world”.
On 15th March, it will be ten years since Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly. I am interested to see how the music press writes about this album ahead of the anniversary. New context and meaning. Still relevant and always influential. The supreme and mesmeric To Pimp a Butterfly…
A flawless album.