TPAB has to be the least replayed or heard "classic" album in the history of rap.
I'm telling y'all, there was a movement of "Black Intellectuals" on social media during the early 2010's and once they were platformed they talked and acted as if they were the authority on the Black experience in the United States. When you combine that with the spotlight that was put on police brutality and overtly racist acts like George Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin during that time, the music of that era becomes the soundtrack to the state of the society.
So if a rapper like Kendrick who had a wildly successful mainstream debut with GKMC drops and album like TPAB, you can expect people to gas it and perhaps even over inflate how good the album actually is.
This isn't new in rap. There has always been albums that were propped up because of the timing of when they dropped and the state of music or society. A good example is 50 Cent with GRODT. It's wasn't like rap wasn't still hardcore and street and gangsta when GRODT dropped. It's just that the state of rap music at the time was leaning more towards party music, club bangers, and less of an in your face gangsta shit like G-Funk era rap. So when GRODT dropped and 50 was able to blend the hardcore raps, club bangers, party songs, and lyrical word play, it made for one of the most impactful periods in music history. Not just rap.
Also just like when TPAB dropped, the music fit the real life experience. Kendrick was rapping about the state of things in Black culture in a way where everybody could not ignore because we were living through those times.
50 was able to translate the entire persona of a "Rapper" and combine that with his real life experiences which created one of the most authentic rap moments in history.
So then why does it sound like I'm going in on TPAB? It's because while the album wasn't trash (which I would not call an album like TPAB trash considering the content and the period in which it dropped), the reception from a lot of those "Voices of the Black Community" types was that "we" needed that album because of what was going on. It got so ridiculous that niggas were attacking rappers like Drake and demanding that he switch up his content and rap about political commentary and Black struggles or else he would be deemed trash, not at the top of his craft, washed, or however you want to describe it.
Niggas used a moment in time and a piece of music to try and define an era and they weaponized that album as some sort of barometer on Black music. All of a sudden, Kendrick is a genius and a GOAT because he dropped a period piece of music during a very tumultuous time. Niggas didn't learn their lesson when they tried to "crown" niggas like Kanye with that shit. Remember how when College Dropout dropped it was a moment in rap? Then it got to the point where niggas were gassing Kanye so much that they never stopped and even considered who he really was. The wild ass nigga walking around with his ashy butt crack out and wearing dominatrix stocking mask is the same guy that made Through The Wire. The same guy that is a Nazi sympathizer produced "Be" which is one of the best and most complete rap albums of All Time.
But niggas were too busy trying to be the authority on Black music to see that. Instead we were hounded and reminded over and over that Kanye West is a genius and whatnot.
So just like with Kanye, TPAB was less about how good the actual album was and more about a very self centered and obnoxious sector of "Black" people using an album to create a moment in rap history. That album winning a Pulitzer is actually a joke when you consider all of the albums in rap history too but that is what happens when you have niggas trying to be the authority on a Black experience that eventually gets co-opted or flat out taken over by white people. If those "Black Intellectuals don't Stan (ironic) as hard for TPAB as they did then it's never on white people's radar and it damn sure isn't winning a Pulitzer Prize.
