Kendrick Borrowed the Isley Brothers and Made Something Bulletproof

That guitar line from That Lady—the Isley Brothers, 1973—is one of those riffs that sounds like it already knew everything. Kendrick Lamar heard it the same way, apparently, because he built i on top of it and turned it into something aggressively, almost confrontationally joyful. It’s a strange move from a rapper whose previous two albums were exercises in controlled damage.

Kendrick Duckworth—who has always rapped like he’s thinking several lanes ahead of everyone else in the room—dropped i as a standalone single in September 2014, floating loose from whatever album was coming next. After Section.80 and good kid, m.A.A.d city, the expectation was more excavation, more Los Angeles as spiritual wound. Instead he handed over something that just wants you to feel good about being alive. Not naively. Not stupidly. With the kind of insistence that sounds like it was hard-won.

When the third album finally arrives, if the rest of it sounds anything like this, I can wait.