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All Songs +1: Your Song Of The Week, Kendrick Lamar's 'King Kunta'

Kendrick Lamar's latest album is <em>To Pimp A Butterfly</em>, which includes the song, "King Kunta," the number one song in our listener survey this week.
Courtesy of the artist
Kendrick Lamar's latest album is To Pimp A Butterfly, which includes the song, "King Kunta," the number one song in our listener survey this week.

Bob Boilen and I thought we'd try something new this week: a second All Songs Considered, a mini-podcast. We start with a ten-minute conversation about a song our listeners say they couldn't stop playing this week: Kendrick Lamar's "King Kunta," a track that is both insanely catchy and profound.

To help us unspool the song's multiple layers of meaning, it's many cultural and historical references and its funk-inspired grooves, we asked NPR Music's Timmhotep Aku, a writer and producer who covers hip-hop and R&B, to join us.

You can hear and download our conversation with the listen link above. You can hear Kendrick Lamar's song below:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.
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