Advertisement

Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem Are Having Too Much Fun on “The Hillbillies”

BabyKeemKendrickLamarMusicVideo - Credit: YouTube
BabyKeemKendrickLamarMusicVideo - Credit: YouTube

When Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free’s multidisciplinary entertainment company pgLang was first announced in 2020, it was light on the details — both on what the company was meant to be about and how it would change Lamar’s career. The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper had brought his energetic cousin Baby Keem with him, but pgLang could have been Kendrick making TDE 2.0, starting his own label, or it might have simply been his new toy. Kendrick Lamar has been many things — Black culture firebreather, divisively transgressive rapper, proletariat superstar — but usually, everything he feared and enjoyed was on the page. This move felt different. The bombastic “Family Ties” offered a tiny glimpse and struck an itchy nerve, but then came the intense and complicated Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers. What is the prestigious Compton emcee doing? How was pgLang going to affect his visuals and music? Is Keem even good?

The answer is starting to get a little clearer. Today, Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar released “The Hillbillies,” a three-minute song and music video where both rappers trade bars back and forth about women, fashion, and flossing like self-made millionaires. You could see Lamar and Keem waiting to break this out, particularly Lamar, who is irreverent and fun in a way he usually isn’t. With his small stature but big dreams and booming voice, Lamar can be so interesting when he isn’t trying to be so performative. “I ain’t even fact check,” he spits on this song, and it could be mean in his music or in general. This verse reminds me of some of his work with Dom Kennedy or Fredo Santana. It’s a space just to relax and “make it look sexy.” He can be himself; he isn’t bound to the Grammy-worthy music of the past. To see him is to see widescreen rap, and this one is in a multiplex theater, coming with popcorn and candy. Sometimes, listening to Lamar can be tedious on purpose, bombastically prestige at best. Here, going back and forth with his cousin, Lamar calls himself a “Comton Cowboy” in a cheeky tone.

More from Rolling Stone

 

If Kendrick is an adult who can finally be free, Keem is practicing yuppiedom. After Kendrick ends a verse with “Matter of fact, let’s just be platonic,” Keem responds with, “I just fucked, ain’t that ironic?” Keem, an emcee with a good voice but often frustratingly generic lyrics or production, is in good form here — an addition to the very good “Savior Interlude” off of Big Steppers. His big cousin will always be the more natural rapper, but Keem is like if Uzi, Travis Scott, and his cousin made a child, and it’s perfectly fine. He fits the track’s beat, which comes courtesy of Evilgiane, Surf Gang’s in-house producer. It’s fluid, a mix of sample drill  — the beat samples Bon Iver — and the Sounwave and DJ Dahi style production that has defined Lamar’s career to date.

But the music video is especially killer for its grainy and fan-cam style filmmaking. Kendrick shows off his cowboy boots on a private jet and his glistening diamond earrings; he and Keem dance at Dodger Stadium alongside Tyler, the Creator; Kendrick dances with a white security guard. Lamar even shows his improving fashion taste, an exciting aspect of his that seemed impossible to imagine years ago when he strictly wore Nike Cortez’s and American Apparel t-shirts. While it’s still unclear what exactly pgLang is, it does seem to be complimenting Mr. Lamar and Mr. Keem very well.

Best of Rolling Stone

Click here to read the full article.