Kendrick Lamar, Dublin review: 3Arena gig confirms status as most intriguing rapper alive
A file picture of Kendrick Lamar during his live set. He plays two gigs at 3Arena in Dublin. Picture: Santiago Bluguermann/Getty Images
★★★★★
Helen Mirren, a mobile Covid lab, an upset-looking puppet. As he brought his Big Steppers tour to Dublin, nobody could accuse rapper Kendrick Lamar of failing to think outside the box.
Ironically the appearance of the mocked-up Covid lab sparked a chant that suggested just the opposite. As the cube-like structure descended from the ceiling, the entire room burst into a chorus of “Kendrick’s in a box” – to the tune of KC and the Sunshine Band’s Give It Up.
Did he have the foggiest what they were on about? Who knows. Lamar was too busy getting ready to negotiate his group-hug hit, Alright– a song that in the US has become a Gen Z protest anthem.
Mirren had been with us from the outset. She was the voice of the omniscient narrator who framed the evening as a plunge into Los Angeles-born Lamar’s tumultuous inner life. The puppet only the rapper could explain.
The deeper meaning of it all was perfectly obvious, though. This was pummelling, avant-garde hip-hop that doubled as a breathless tour of Lamar’s troubled id.
Eight dancers – men in black, women in white – delivered a series of stunning routines that felt like they belonged in an experimental ballet rather than in a shed on Dublin’s docklands.
As they did, Lamar, shrouded in a cosy black hoodie, rapped about the contradictory ideas pushing and pulling inside his head. He was taking up the theme of his latest LP, Mr Morale and the Big Steppers. Suddenly the puppet made sense: the manic marionette was a manifestation of Kendrick’s alter-ego.
It was a tour de force fuelled by ambition and sprinkled with pretension. Lamar was deconstructing mass-market hip hop, filtering it through his introspective, almost professorial, take on rap. That approach has already claimed him a place in the history books: in 2018, his DAMN LP became the first hip-hop project to claim a Pulitzer Prize.
Lamar has throughout his career brought a dark charisma to a milieu that, in its mainstream manifestation, celebrates big egos and surface-level swagger. Here, he cut loose when engaging in a playful face-off with Baby Keem (his support act and cousin).
It was the smaller moments that hit the hardest, however. Lamar sat at an upright piano for United in Grief, rhyming as he played. And it was back to the stool and those black and white keys on Crown. “I can't please everybody/No, I can't please everybody,” he half-rapped, half-crooned.
But he did please everyone with a set that confirmed his status as most intriguing rapper alive. And as a performer who transcends genre with music that burns with the white hot purity of true art.
