Pitchfork对DAMN.的乐评及（糙）翻译

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23147-damn/ 【9.2分】【Best New Music】 DAMN. is a widescreen masterpiece of rap, full of expensive beats, furious rhymes, and peerless storytelling about Kendrick’s destiny in America. DAMN.是一张视野广阔的饶舌杰作，充满了昂贵的鼓点，激进的押韵，以及喇嘛无人能及的叙事能力对于他在美利坚命运的讲述。 Life is one funny motherfucker, it’s true. “DUCKWORTH.,” the last song on Kendrick Lamar's fourth studio album DAMN., tells a winding story about Anthony from Compton and Ducky from Chicago, whose paths cross first over KFC biscuits, and again, 20 years later, when Ducky’s son records a song about the encounter for Anthony’s record label. It’s a precious origin story, the stuff of rock docs and hood DVDs, and it’s delivered with such precision, vivid detail, and masterful pacing that it can’t possibly be true. But it’s a tale too strange to be fiction, and too powerful not to believe in—just like its author. Kendrick Lamar has proven he’s a master storyteller, but he’s been saving his best plot twist this whole time, waiting until he was ready, or able, to pull it off. Life is one funny motherfucker, it’s true. “DUCKWORTH.”，来自喇嘛第四张录音室专辑DAMN的最后一首歌，讲述了一个关于来自康普顿的Anthony和来自芝加哥的Ducky的曲折故事，他们的人生轨迹在KFC的比司吉（美国肯德基卖某种甜点？）之前第一次交错，二十年以后，Ducky的儿子为Anthony的音乐厂牌录了一首关于那次相遇的歌。这是一个珍贵的第一手故事，关于摇滚档案片和影碟的员工,并且以如此精确，如此生动的细节，娴熟的节奏呈现出来，以至于让人觉得不可能是真的。但它过于奇怪不会是杜撰，过于具有冲击性也让人无法不相信——正如它的创作者一样。喇嘛证明了自己是个讲故事的大师，但他一直在保留自己最好的那一个曲折的故事情节，直到他准备好，或是说有能力，将其呈现。 Storytelling has been Lamar’s greatest skill and most primary mission, to put into (lots of) words what it's like to grow up as he did—to articulate, in human terms, the intimate specifics of daily self-defense from your surroundings. Somehow, he’s gotten better. The raps on his fourth studio album DAMN. jab mercilessly like a sewing machine. His boyish nasal instrument is distinct and inimitable as it slithers up and down in pitch on “PRIDE.” Even when Lamar sounds like Eminem, or Drake, or OutKast, he sounds like himself, and he arguably outpaces them all as a writer. On “FEAR.,” he relays daily threats from his mom (“I’ll beat your ass, keep talking back/I’ll beat your ass, who bought you that? You stole it”) and from his neighbors (“I’ll probably die because I ain’t know Demarcus was snitching/I’ll probably die at these house parties fucking with bitches”) over low-slung blues stirred by The Alchemist. Lamar’s recitation is so effortless you wonder where he breathes, or if he does at all. 讲故事一直是喇嘛的最杰出的能力，也是最首要的任务，即用（很多）文字来表现像他一样成长是什么样子的——清晰通俗点来说，就是，日复一日将自己与外面的世界隔离开来的一些私密细节。不知为什么，他变得更加厉害了。他在四专DAMN.里面的说唱像一台缝纫机一样无情地猛戳你的内心。他充满男孩子气的鼻音在“PRIDE.”的音调中滑上又滑下，与众不同且无法仿效。就算喇嘛听起来像Eminem，Drake或者Outcast，他依然充满了自己的风格，并且可以说他作为一个创作者超越了所有这些歌手。在“FEAR.”中，他讲述每天从他妈妈那里得到威胁(“I’ll beat your ass, keep talking back/I’ll beat your ass, who bought you that? You stole it”)以及从他的邻居(“I’ll probably die because I ain’t know Demarcus was snitching/I’ll probably die at these house parties fucking with bitches”)，伴随着The Alchemist哼唱出的低沉布鲁斯。喇嘛的说唱听起来毫不费力，以至于你在想他到底在哪里呼吸，或者说他到底要不要呼吸。 Kendrick is a relic of the mid-aughts rap blog era, where bedroom WordPress pages would post .zips of albums by amateurs. After years of such releases, Kendrick dropped a self-titled EP in 2009 that featured Big Pooh from Little Brother and elicited such Nah Right comments as “I like the beats on this” and “who da fuk?” Accolades swelled with each project; by 2011, he was considering signing with Dr. Dre; by 2013, he was playing SNL and touring with Kanye West. He came of age with his fans, and by 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly, he put to music their chest-clenched frustrations. Ever the curtain-puller, he released an album of untitled and unmastered drafts and grew his hair out. His short absence, even after lending Taylor Swift a verse, has been made to feel longer by his media shyness and a surging tide of new rappers shuttled out daily. Kendrick是mid-aughts说唱博客时代的遗物，那是卧室里的WordPress（曾今的一个博客平台）页面会将业余歌手的专辑压缩上传的时代。经过了几年这样发布作品，Kendrick在09年发行了一张与自己同名的EP，与来自Little Brother的Big Pooh合作，收到了诸如“我喜欢这歌的节奏”“who da fuk”之类的评论。赞誉随着每张作品越来越多；2011年的时候，他已经在考虑和Dr.Dre合作；到2013年，他已经在周六夜现场演出，并且和Kanye West一起巡演。他和他的fans是在同样的年代成人长大，到2015年发行的To Pimp a Butterfly，他将他们痛彻内心的失落写进歌中。作为总是揭开谜底的那个人，他发行了untitled unmastered，并且开始留头发。他在公众视野中的短暂消失，即使中间给Taylor Swift唱了段主歌（Bad Blood混音），也因为他在社交媒体的不活跃和每天都有新的说唱歌手发歌的大潮而让人感到漫长。 Throughout it all, he’s avoided the boxed-in fates of predecessors like Nas and peers like J. Cole through an electric originality and curiosity. He mastered rap not for mastery’s sake, but to use it as a form, undeterred by slow-eared fans who’ll only highlight his “simplest lines.” His best new trick is repetition; it offsets his density and drills his ideas, as enthralling as a Sunday sermon or pre-fight chirp session. There have been few threats committed to record as sincere as, “Let somebody touch my mama, touch my sister, touch my woman/Touch my daddy, touch my niece, touch my nephew, touch my brother”—you tick down the list along with him, slot in your own lifelong bonds with loved ones. Such internal processing plays out through the album’s Greek chorus, via the singer Bēkon, who speaks in riddles of balance throughout: “Is it wickedness, is it weakness;” “Love’s gonna get you killed, but pride’s gonna be the death of you;” “It was always me versus the world/Until I found it’s me versus me.” 一直以来，他通过他令人激动的的原创能力与音乐好奇心避开了像他的前辈Nas和同辈J.Cole被雪藏的命运。他说唱并不仅仅为了说唱，而是为了利用说唱的这种形式，并未被只在意最简单句子的歌迷给阻挡。他最新的绝活就是复读机一样地重复；这抵消了他歌曲的密集并且提炼出了他的想法，正如星期天的布道和战前的洗脑集会一样。没有什么在歌曲中的威胁像这样的真实：“Let somebody touch my mama, touch my sister, touch my woman/Touch my daddy, touch my niece, touch my nephew, touch my brother”——你和他一起沿着这个列表细数，将你自己一生所爱着的人对号入座。像这样的内心历程贯穿整张专辑的Greek式合唱，通过歌手Bēkon说着关于权衡的谜语: “Is it wickedness, is it weakness;” “Love’s gonna get you killed, but pride’s gonna be the death of you;” “It was always me versus the world/Until I found it’s me versus me.” DAMN. is best in these philosophical spaces. It lags slightly around the center, where the concept loosens: “LOYALTY.,” with Rihanna, has all the makings of a radio mainstay this summer, and is as low-stakes as the platform demands; it’s always fun to hear Rih rap, and her presence is its most interesting aspect. “LUST.” would sound better if it weren’t next to an ear-worm as tender as “LOVE.,” which slow-dances between Zacari falsettos and Lamar’s sheepish read of the girl who fills him up. Between the two tracks, it’s easy to tell which force is tugging at him harder. DAMN.在下面这些哲学层面做到了最好。在专辑中间稍微延后、概念揭示的位置：“LOYALTY”，这首和Rihanna合作的单曲，拥有在今年夏天电台大火的所有元素，并且如这个平台所需要的一样低廉；听到日日说唱总是很有趣的，并且她的存在是这首歌最有趣味的部分。如果没有挨着向耳边蠕虫一样绵软的“LOVE.”，“LUST.”会听起来更好。“LOVE.”这首歌游走在Zaraci的假声和喇嘛羞怯的对于怀中女孩的呼唤。两首歌之间，可以轻易地看出哪种力量在更加用力地牵引着喇嘛。 The record’s few lulls succumb to what surrounds them. The springboard bounce of “HUMBLE.,” the war chant of “DNA.,” and hot steel of “XXX.” show Kendrick in his element, fast and lucid, like Eazy-E with college credits and Mike WiLL beats. The production is taut and clean, but schizophrenic, often splicing two or three loops into a track and swaying between tempos, closer in kin to good kid’s siren-synths than Butterfly’s brass solos. If he was “black as the moon” on his last album, he’s an “Israelite” here, refusing to identify himself by the shade of his skin but fluent in the contents of his D.N.A. Butterfly floated along to soften its scathing stance—”We hate po-po” sounds better over a smooth saxophone—but with so many “wack artists” in play, what’s the reward for upliftment? Kendrick is so alone at his altitude that when he acknowledges Fox News, let alone Donald Trump, it feels like a favor to them both. 专辑中为数不多的间歇平静曲目被它们前后的歌曲所压制。跳板歌曲“HUMBLE.”，战争颂歌“DNA.”，滚烫如铁的“XXX.”展示了Kendrick迅速与清晰的音乐元素，就像上过大学的Eazy-E和Mike Will的节奏。整张专辑制作简洁，但是也充满“精神分裂”感，常常一首歌由两三个循环拼接而成，比起TPAB中的brass solo更像是Good Kid的siren-synths. 如果说他在上张专辑是一个“纯黑”的形象，这张专辑他更像一个“以色列人”，拒绝用自己的肤色来标榜自己，却将自己DNA中的黑人音乐天分拿捏自如。飞舞的蝴蝶（上专喇嘛以蝴蝶自喻）软化了这张专辑尖锐的立场—”We hate po-po”在平滑的萨克斯中听起来没有那么激进——但乐坛中有如此多的“垃圾歌手”，如此拔高显得意义甚微。Kendrick在他的高度如此孤独，以至于当他提到Fox news，更不用说Trump时，感觉像是帮了他们俩大忙。 Still, the album exists for “DUCKWORTH.” It’s the final piece of the TDE puzzle, a homegrown label of Compton natives that happened to deliver the best rapper of his generation. If we’re to believe the song’s last gunshot—and its seamless loop back to track one—much of DAMN. is written from the perspective of a Kendrick Lamar who grew up without a father to guide him away from the sinful temptations outside his home. He bobs in and out of this perspective, but the repeated pledges to loyalty and martyrdom evoke the life and mind of a young gang member who carries his neighborhood flag because no one’s proved to him that he shouldn’t. These choices, Lamar suggests, aren’t pre-determined or innate, but in constant dialogue with and in reaction to their surrounding circumstances. They aren’t above or beneath anyone who can hear his voice. Success and failure choose their subjects at their whim; we’re as grateful as Kendrick for his fate. 依然，这张专辑为了“DUCKWORTH.”存在。这是TDE 谜语的最后一部分，一个来自于康普顿本土、贡献了当代最好的说唱歌手的厂牌，如果我们要去相信这首歌最后的枪声——和它无缝衔接回专辑第一首歌的循环——DAMN.中大部分歌是以一个成长路上没有父亲将他从家门外各种罪恶的诱惑指引开来的Kendrick Lamar的视角写下的，他在这样的视角中来回摇摆，但对于忠诚与殉道重复的誓言唤醒了这样一个肩负起社区大旗的少年帮成员的生命与思想，因为没有人能向他证明他不应该这样。这些选择，喇嘛暗示道，不是预设好或者与生俱来的，而是在与他周遭环境不断的对话与回应中决定的。它们既不超出也不低于任何可以听到喇嘛音乐的人的认知范围。成功与失败任性地选择着将要接受它们的人；我们如同喇嘛本人一样感恩着他的命运。