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Kendrick Lamar Biography "The Butterfly Effect" Gets Release Date

The impact of Kendrick Lamar merits further exploration.

Anybody familiar with the musical work of Compton's own Kendrick Lamar understands his significance. Few artists in music deal with themes as effectively, exploring sociopolitical concepts and wide-ranging cultural analysis through lyricism. His work on 2017's DAMN. was impactful enough to land him a Pulitzer Prize, making him the first rapper to ever take home the prestigious honor. For many, To Pimp A Butterfly stands among the most important albums of our era, the subject of countless editorials and analyses. It's no wonder that music journalist Marcus J. Moore has chosen to make Kendrick Lamar the subject of his first book, The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America.

Kendrick Lamar Biography "The Butterfly Effect" Gets Release Date

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Announcing the book on Twitter, Moore confirmed that it will be hitting retailers on October 13th. A synopsis on Simon & Schuster reveals as follows: "This first cultural biography of rap superstar and “master of storytelling” (The New Yorker) Kendrick Lamar explores his meteoric rise to fame and his profound impact on a racially fraught Americ." 

Though it's unclear as to whether the book will feature reflections from Kendrick himself, it stands to reason that The Butterfly Effect will be a powerful and thought-provoking read for his fanbase. If you're interested, Pre-Orders can be arranged right here.

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All The EDM At Coachella 2020, Including Two Legendary Come-Back Sets

Coachella just dropped the lineup for 2020 with headliners Rage Against The Machine, Travis Scott, and Frank Ocean. As with any Coachella lineup drop, there will be armchair analysts pouring over every inch of the lineup, offering pontifications as to why this is either the best lineup in years or the worst they’ve ever seen.


There’s also the question of how dance music stacks up to previous years. It’s always a tough question because such a specific section of the lineup is EDM-oriented, it’s not like they’re going to hit on every genre or every person’s favorite artist. However, the festival routinely hits on big acts and new, deserving ones year after year.

In 2020, attendees will be able to bear witness to a very, very wide assortment of artists, from Calvin Harris to SLANDER to Duke Dumont to Peggy Gou to TNGHT. In fact, there are some seriously special EDM performances on the docket.

One of them, as already stated, is TNGHT. The Hudson Mohawke and Lunice group only just returned in 2019 after a six-year hiatus with the 8-track II and a show with Brownies & Lemonade. Now they’re playing Coachella — what a comeback. The other is Duck Sauce, the A-Trak and Armand van Helden duo that last played the festival in 2014. A-Trak teased the return of the group earlier this week, but who was to know they’d be planning something like this.

Apart from the “special” performances of the festival, you also have Calvin Harris returning for his first time since he headlined the festival in 2016. We’ll have to wait for set times to see if he’s playing ahead of headliners Rage Against The Machine on the main stage or closing the Outdoor Theater on Friday. With him will be Madeon, Lane 8, GRiZ, TOKiMONSTA, Cashmere Cat, VNSSA, Lost Kings, and more to be announced with Do Lab and Heineken House.

Saturday will feature Flume and Disclosure, two acts who haven’t played the festival in years. They’ll be accompanied by Caribou, Deadmau5’s techno alias Testpilot, Black Coffee, Jai Wolf, Yaeji, Tchami, Dixon, Hot Chip, DJ Koze, Floating Points, ANNA, Matoma, Chris Liebing, Whipped Cream, GG Magree and a few others. This is looking like the strong day for the Yuma tent if you’re just going for the techno.

Sunday has some huge names in dance music, but appears to be the weaker day overall. Louis The Child tops the dance music names — we’ll see if they’re blessed with a main stage slot or maybe a headliner position at Sahara. You never know with Coachella these days where someone might end up. Fatboy Slim, Mura Masa, Duck Sauce, SLANDER, Duke Dumont, Big Wild, SebastiAn, and others help round out a strong finish to the weekend.

Weekend 1 is completely sold out. Weekend 2 presale begins Monday, 1/6 at 12pm PT. You can register here.

 

Photo courtesy of Coachella

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Kendrick Perkins Offers Bold Take On Why The Blazers Are Struggling

The Blazers have been floundering this season.

This season hasn't been very kind to the Portland Trail Blazers. Aside from the addition of Carmelo Anthony, the team hasn't been able to drum up very much excitement. Their 14-21 record leaves a lot to be desired although somehow, they are still in playoff contention. Regardless, their results on the court simply haven't been good enough for a team that made the Western Conference Finals just a year ago. Last night was another example of the team's struggles as they lost by 24 points to the New York Knicks and no, you didn't read that wrong.

Former player Kendrick Perkins has been spending the last couple of years giving his opinions on the game. Twitter has offered him the best platform to do this and on Thursday morning, he gave his take on what's been going wrong with the Blazers.

Perkins' hypothesis is definitely an interesting one. The Blazers haven't had very much chemistry this season although their depth has certainly been an issue. This roster relies too much on Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum which leads to a lack of scoring options. Melo has been playing well but it's not enough to truly make this roster a contender.

Thanks to a weak Western Conference, the Blazers have a real shot at making the postseason. If they can get some of their injured players back, perhaps they'll carry some momentum into the playoffs.