Kendrick Lamar knows the power of words. He knows when to use them and when not to use them. The questions going into Sunday night was: What would he do during his Coachella headlining set—and, more importantly, what would he say? During his 2016 headlining set at Panorama Music Festival in New York, in the middle of a summer of full of hatred and violence, he simply introduced his Black Lives Matter anthem by telling the crowd "We're going to celebrate life." They knew the rest. On Sunday night during his long-awaited headlining set at Coachella, he didn't even need to do that. Instead he let his music tell the story.
He opened the show with video of the Fox News clip sampled on "DNA," which he played for the first time live. That night, he also debuted "Element," "Lust," "XXX," "God," "Pride," "Humble," and "Love." It takes immense confidence to make your Coachella headlining setlist mostly songs from an album that's three days old. But that's the power of Lamar—he knows his music, even brand new, will be enough to anchor one of the biggest stages in the world. And he's right. During the main set closer of "Humble," he held out the mic for the audience to finish the Grey Poupon lyric. And one of the most incredible things about Lamar's lyricism is his ability to craft turns of phrase that latch on so fast to the collective consciousness. When I first saw him, right after the release of Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, he already had entire audiences shouting "Ya Bish" and "Drank" as fervently as they were during "Money Trees" and "Swimming Pools" on Sunday night.
Part of this is because Lamar is a rapper who understands the loose, collective improvisational aspect of music. He's a band leader who fronts a group of live musicians. Because he's not tied to a DJ or a prerecorded track, he has the freedom to pivot, to engage the audience, and react to what he reads from the crowd—like any good musician. And on Sunday night, his new Damn material translated well to his organic live show. Now that he's moved on from the complex acid jazz / R&B of To Pimp a Butterfly and Untitled Unmastered, his band can focus on the radio-friendly material from Damn. And in the process of debuting this material, he seemed to be showing the world that he can be just as much a pop star as he is poet and activist. This was clear when he was joined by Future on "Mask Off" and Travis Scott on "Goosebumps." Kendrick even sang live on "God," as if to show that it's pretty easy to do it all. While Good Kid, M.A.A.D City was his mainstream breakthrough and To Pimp a Butterfly his complex artistic statement, Damn bridges the gap. Lamar can write for his audience and for himself.
The albums that make up Kendrick Lamar's catalog feel like five chapters, each one a distinct experience of sounds, ideas, themes, and influences working together. And on Sunday night, Lamar needed to say very little to make this latest era clear. That's why he opened the night with the clip from Fox News—one in which the talking head complained about the power of Lamar's genre of music. He needn't elaborate on why he played this clip, because his music did it for him.
