LcnsdbyROYALTY
New member
*snip*
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“DAMN.,” King Kendrick!
http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.43156/t...irst-week-sales-set-monster-landmark-for-2017
Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. album pushed 610,000 equivalent album units to claim the top spot on the Billboard 200 in its first week. The LP pulled in more than 300 million streams, but 60 percent of the total number comes from pure album sales, boosted by the epic album signing he held in Compton. Kendrick beats out Drake for the highest-selling debut of 2017. More Life sold 505,000 units upon its release earlier this month. It spent three weeks at #1 before being dethroned. This is K.Dot’s third straight #1 album, following untitled unmastered. and To Pimp a Butterfly.
http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.43156/t...irst-week-sales-set-monster-landmark-for-2017
Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. album pushed 610,000 equivalent album units to claim the top spot on the Billboard 200 in its first week. The LP pulled in more than 300 million streams, but 60 percent of the total number comes from pure album sales, boosted by the epic album signing he held in Compton. Kendrick beats out Drake for the highest-selling debut of 2017. More Life sold 505,000 units upon its release earlier this month. It spent three weeks at #1 before being dethroned. This is K.Dot’s third straight #1 album, following untitled unmastered. and To Pimp a Butterfly.
StoneColdMikey
New member
blackrain;c-9740361 said:
TheGOAT;c-9740363 said:blackrain;c-9740361 said:
Man @blackrain that was uncalled for
natural born sinners
New member
blackrain;c-9740361 said:
Is Mano still in the league...niggas antics were Oscar worthy
LcnsdbyROYALTY
New member
Stew;c-9740469 said:
Dre has had minimum production on all of Dot's major label releases. He co-mixed like 2 or 3 songs on GKMC (Ali mixed every track), he had a very brief appearance on TPAB (no mixing at all), and all he was involved in on DAMN. was being the album's executive producer (which is what he's been on every K. Dot album since signing). Stop tryna force this nigga to overproduce Kendrick's shyt!!!!
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LcnsdbyROYALTY
New member
Case in point...
https://twitter.com/Young_Guru/status/852735717859926017
https://twitter.com/Young_Guru/status/852735717859926017
LcnsdbyROYALTY
New member
Stew;c-9740488 said:
Mixing is part of the production process, fam, no? And I was just putting you on game, soak it up.
GQ Interview with Sounwave...
The Grammy-winning producer and longtime Kendrick whisperer Mark "Sounwave" Spears takes us behind the scenes.
Kendrick Lamar and his longtime producer Mark "Sounwave" Spears have a routine. After months spent together in the studio, when they finally think a particular project is finished, they take it for a ride. Literally. They cruise the streets. Test it out. See how it sounds. More importantly, how it feels.
"It gets to that last song and if you don't have a little chill in your body or some kind of quiver," Sounwave says, "then we're basically gonna say, 'This is not ready.' And we'll probably start back over."
This ride happened a few times before both guys were satisfied with DAMN., Lamar's brilliant, equal parts boisterous and bleak fourth album, released last week. "That's why it came out when it came out," the producer adds. "'Cause we've done this project a few times; we had different versions of it. But until we got that one chill at the end of the last song and it just gives you that vibe that this is it, it's not going out." Lamar and Sounwave have an innate understanding of one another. Sounwave knows to trust Lamar's instinct; Lamar knows Sounwave will as the producer says "clean up" his ideas.
So how did they approach the follow-up to 2015's critically lauded To Pimp a Butterfly—an album lauded not just for its sonic adventurousness and incorporation of g-funk and free jazz, but Lamar's hyperawareness of his burgeoning role as a preeminent voice in the cultural conversation? As Sounwave explains in a conversation that sheds light on Lamar's unending drive and the unrelenting effort that went into DAMN., they just got back to work. Because the creative process for him and Lamar never really ends. It just pauses—probably for a day at most. And then it's back to the grind.
These car rides. Multiple attempts at this album. For a producer, it must be equal parts challenging and exhilarating to work with an artist as self-aware as Kendrick Lamar.
It's definitely a gift and a curse. Sometimes we'll butt heads. I'll feel like it's done. "Let's put it out." Then he'll say, "Nah, but listen to this 0.3 seconds on this right here. It's not connecting." And that's when it hits me. "You know what? You're right. Let's go back in." Granted, look at his track record: It's amazing work. So you never go against his word. If he says something you listen to it. And 99.9% of the time it's right.
Kendrick never stops working, huh? I hear you were already back in the studio last night.
You have no idea. Literally was in there until, like, four in the morning.
Is Kendrick one to think about the expectations people have placed on him?
You don't want to overthink things. Especially with him. He just speaks on what he feels. And then it's up to me to clean it up a little bit here and there. Some people might be like "Ah, let me hold back. That's too much. They might not understand that." Nah. He's going to give it all. And fortunately all of our fans understand it 100 percent.
When did you actually start working on what became DAMN.?
Right after To Pimp a Butterfly. Literally as soon as it was done. He goes into these phases where basically his mind is this big storyboard and he's picking ideas: "What if we did this? What if we did that?"
What does the discussion sound like in terms of where a project is headed from a sonic perspective?
After TPAB people were wondering whether that was that funky jazz was his new musical wavelength or, like in the past, it would be on to the next.
I know him to the tee. I know he's not going to want to make another To Pimp a Butterfly, sonically or lyrically. So I'm going to go all out to find the people that are going to push a boundary and go somewhere different, because we never want to do anything the same. You listen to good kid, m.A.A.d city and then you've got Pimp, and that sounds totally different from that. And then DAMN. sounds totally different from To Pimp a Butterfly. So we're always going to try to push the boundary. It excites us.
You brought in more outside production help and new guest collaborators this time, from BadBadNotGood to Kaytranada and DJ Dahi.
Definitely. It was pretty much the same as with To Pimp a Butterfly. Once I know the direction we're going in, I'm going to reach out to the people that's going to enhance that sound. So for this album, once I seen the direction you gotta reach out to the Dahi's, the Rahki's, the Cardo's, the people that can just elevate the sound that we're going to and try to bend it as much as possible without going too crazy. My boy Brock, he's probably one of the greatest A&R's out there right now, and he just has all these producers under his belt. And he puts it in our hands to find the next crazy sound of producers. We take that serious. I literally put on my Twitter and Instagram: "If you got some crazy sound, just send it and I'll actually bring you to the studio."
So you just pick everything you can to make the greatest project. For this album in particular, every song was made in the studio. Except for "FEEL," maybe. But except for that song, it was literally like you needed to be in the studio. You needed to have this vibe. You needed to know where we're going sonically, lyrically, or it's just not going to work. Everybody was sending in amazing work. Top-notch producers sending in the greatest beats I've ever heard. But if their schedule wasn't open enough to come in for weeks, then it was kind of tough for them to actually be part of it.
Kendrick Lamar and his longtime producer Mark "Sounwave" Spears have a routine. After months spent together in the studio, when they finally think a particular project is finished, they take it for a ride. Literally. They cruise the streets. Test it out. See how it sounds. More importantly, how it feels.
"It gets to that last song and if you don't have a little chill in your body or some kind of quiver," Sounwave says, "then we're basically gonna say, 'This is not ready.' And we'll probably start back over."
This ride happened a few times before both guys were satisfied with DAMN., Lamar's brilliant, equal parts boisterous and bleak fourth album, released last week. "That's why it came out when it came out," the producer adds. "'Cause we've done this project a few times; we had different versions of it. But until we got that one chill at the end of the last song and it just gives you that vibe that this is it, it's not going out." Lamar and Sounwave have an innate understanding of one another. Sounwave knows to trust Lamar's instinct; Lamar knows Sounwave will as the producer says "clean up" his ideas.
So how did they approach the follow-up to 2015's critically lauded To Pimp a Butterfly—an album lauded not just for its sonic adventurousness and incorporation of g-funk and free jazz, but Lamar's hyperawareness of his burgeoning role as a preeminent voice in the cultural conversation? As Sounwave explains in a conversation that sheds light on Lamar's unending drive and the unrelenting effort that went into DAMN., they just got back to work. Because the creative process for him and Lamar never really ends. It just pauses—probably for a day at most. And then it's back to the grind.
These car rides. Multiple attempts at this album. For a producer, it must be equal parts challenging and exhilarating to work with an artist as self-aware as Kendrick Lamar.
It's definitely a gift and a curse. Sometimes we'll butt heads. I'll feel like it's done. "Let's put it out." Then he'll say, "Nah, but listen to this 0.3 seconds on this right here. It's not connecting." And that's when it hits me. "You know what? You're right. Let's go back in." Granted, look at his track record: It's amazing work. So you never go against his word. If he says something you listen to it. And 99.9% of the time it's right.
Kendrick never stops working, huh? I hear you were already back in the studio last night.
You have no idea. Literally was in there until, like, four in the morning.
Is Kendrick one to think about the expectations people have placed on him?
You don't want to overthink things. Especially with him. He just speaks on what he feels. And then it's up to me to clean it up a little bit here and there. Some people might be like "Ah, let me hold back. That's too much. They might not understand that." Nah. He's going to give it all. And fortunately all of our fans understand it 100 percent.
When did you actually start working on what became DAMN.?
Right after To Pimp a Butterfly. Literally as soon as it was done. He goes into these phases where basically his mind is this big storyboard and he's picking ideas: "What if we did this? What if we did that?"
What does the discussion sound like in terms of where a project is headed from a sonic perspective?
After TPAB people were wondering whether that was that funky jazz was his new musical wavelength or, like in the past, it would be on to the next.
I know him to the tee. I know he's not going to want to make another To Pimp a Butterfly, sonically or lyrically. So I'm going to go all out to find the people that are going to push a boundary and go somewhere different, because we never want to do anything the same. You listen to good kid, m.A.A.d city and then you've got Pimp, and that sounds totally different from that. And then DAMN. sounds totally different from To Pimp a Butterfly. So we're always going to try to push the boundary. It excites us.
You brought in more outside production help and new guest collaborators this time, from BadBadNotGood to Kaytranada and DJ Dahi.
Definitely. It was pretty much the same as with To Pimp a Butterfly. Once I know the direction we're going in, I'm going to reach out to the people that's going to enhance that sound. So for this album, once I seen the direction you gotta reach out to the Dahi's, the Rahki's, the Cardo's, the people that can just elevate the sound that we're going to and try to bend it as much as possible without going too crazy. My boy Brock, he's probably one of the greatest A&R's out there right now, and he just has all these producers under his belt. And he puts it in our hands to find the next crazy sound of producers. We take that serious. I literally put on my Twitter and Instagram: "If you got some crazy sound, just send it and I'll actually bring you to the studio."
So you just pick everything you can to make the greatest project. For this album in particular, every song was made in the studio. Except for "FEEL," maybe. But except for that song, it was literally like you needed to be in the studio. You needed to have this vibe. You needed to know where we're going sonically, lyrically, or it's just not going to work. Everybody was sending in amazing work. Top-notch producers sending in the greatest beats I've ever heard. But if their schedule wasn't open enough to come in for weeks, then it was kind of tough for them to actually be part of it.
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Cont...
Making everyone come to you—that's power and credibility.
Exactly.
So unlike TPAB , for which several tracks were cut on the road, this was almost entirely a studio endeavor?
Yeah. Once he got his whole brainstorming thing down and we knew the direction we were going we locked down the studio for months. Never left. Literally sleeping bags in the studio.
For real? I heard about you guys doing that but figured that was a thing of the past.
Oh, yeah. Every producer who was on this project literally had to sleep in the studio. We were not leaving until this was a perfect sound to us. If you had a girlfriend, she had to come visit you at the studio. It was that environment.
Extreme.
I'm used to it by now. We've been doing this since the Training Day mixtape.
Talk me through how a song might come together.
It's tough, because every song has its own crazy story. But "LUST"—it's one of the older songs we had and we couldn't get it right. We accidentally stumbled across it. We had the melody loop playing and we put the drums in reverse and it just stuck. It just felt right. So we kept that going. And then we bring in more drums at the end. It's just trying different things and hoping that it feels right.
"XXX" might be the best U2 song in years. How did that unexpected collaboration come together?
Kendrick and Bono always talk back and forth through text and they always wanted to work with each other. It just never lined up. Whenever we'd be working on a project it just wouldn't feel right. Until this came along. It's like "Yo, this is perfect timing." So Kendrick reached out to Bono and the rest is history. It was just like magic. Literally we had the first two parts of the song done and we needed that last piece to be perfect. So we reached out to U2 and they just came with it. It was the perfect set up.
The production on DAMN. is so layered and intricate. How much of that responsibility falls on you and the other producers' shoulders versus Kendrick following his intuition?
It's a collaborative effort. Kendrick is the most hands-on person ever, from music to videos. Anything he does he wants to be in the mix of it. That's why we have these whole two-month sessions. Because he's not leaving. He wants everything to sound like how he has it in his head. So we would start something and he'd be like, "Let's try to take this and flip it and reverse it, and speed this part up and slow this part down." All of those weird effects and tricks you're hearing is literally him. He's making us do that.
He thinks like a producer.
I just don't think he has the patience to learn a program—and if he did, I would not have a job [laughs]. I would just be there for personal support or something. Because he would definitely be an amazing producer.
Where does Kendrick go from here? I get the sense that he's never satisfied.
He asks himself that all the time, bro. I literally just talked to him. He's like, "So what's next?" I'm like, "You tell me." Probably about five months from now we'll have something else completely different from this. Who knows? He might hire the guy who made the TGIF theme song. We're just going to try to push the boundary.
http://www.gq.com/story/sounwave-kendrick-lamar-damn
Exactly.
So unlike TPAB , for which several tracks were cut on the road, this was almost entirely a studio endeavor?
Yeah. Once he got his whole brainstorming thing down and we knew the direction we were going we locked down the studio for months. Never left. Literally sleeping bags in the studio.
For real? I heard about you guys doing that but figured that was a thing of the past.
Oh, yeah. Every producer who was on this project literally had to sleep in the studio. We were not leaving until this was a perfect sound to us. If you had a girlfriend, she had to come visit you at the studio. It was that environment.
Extreme.
I'm used to it by now. We've been doing this since the Training Day mixtape.
Talk me through how a song might come together.
It's tough, because every song has its own crazy story. But "LUST"—it's one of the older songs we had and we couldn't get it right. We accidentally stumbled across it. We had the melody loop playing and we put the drums in reverse and it just stuck. It just felt right. So we kept that going. And then we bring in more drums at the end. It's just trying different things and hoping that it feels right.
"XXX" might be the best U2 song in years. How did that unexpected collaboration come together?
Kendrick and Bono always talk back and forth through text and they always wanted to work with each other. It just never lined up. Whenever we'd be working on a project it just wouldn't feel right. Until this came along. It's like "Yo, this is perfect timing." So Kendrick reached out to Bono and the rest is history. It was just like magic. Literally we had the first two parts of the song done and we needed that last piece to be perfect. So we reached out to U2 and they just came with it. It was the perfect set up.
The production on DAMN. is so layered and intricate. How much of that responsibility falls on you and the other producers' shoulders versus Kendrick following his intuition?
It's a collaborative effort. Kendrick is the most hands-on person ever, from music to videos. Anything he does he wants to be in the mix of it. That's why we have these whole two-month sessions. Because he's not leaving. He wants everything to sound like how he has it in his head. So we would start something and he'd be like, "Let's try to take this and flip it and reverse it, and speed this part up and slow this part down." All of those weird effects and tricks you're hearing is literally him. He's making us do that.
He thinks like a producer.
I just don't think he has the patience to learn a program—and if he did, I would not have a job [laughs]. I would just be there for personal support or something. Because he would definitely be an amazing producer.
Where does Kendrick go from here? I get the sense that he's never satisfied.
He asks himself that all the time, bro. I literally just talked to him. He's like, "So what's next?" I'm like, "You tell me." Probably about five months from now we'll have something else completely different from this. Who knows? He might hire the guy who made the TGIF theme song. We're just going to try to push the boundary.
http://www.gq.com/story/sounwave-kendrick-lamar-damn
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dope piece here
https://twitter.com/DavidDTSS/status/855138944459169796
https://twitter.com/DavidDTSS/status/855138944459169796
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