Pharrell also discussed Lamar's importance to modern music, and N.E.R.D's reasons for inviting him onto "Don't Don't Do It!"I’m thinking to myself, all of these unarmed African-American motorists, when you do what the authorities ask you to do, I wonder before you die if your conscience says that to you or asks you or suggests to you, "don't do it, don't do it." When they tell you to pull over, I wonder if Philando Castile, in his mind, was thinking, "don’t pull over." Any of them, I just wonder if they heard a voice in their mind after they were instructed to do something, if they heard a voice saying, "Don’t do it. Don’t don't do it." And that's where the song came from. And so. you know, who better to enlist to help us communicate that feeling and that notion was Kendrick Lamar.
Listen to "Don't Don't Do It" below.Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.To me Kendrick is like probably a jazz artist reincarnated. The way that he handles the pen is kind of how Miles Davis handled the trumpet. Or how Coltrane fingers just shifted and sifted through his saxophone keys. It’s like his melodies are as prolific and what he has to say has so much harmony and so much color in it. You know what I’m saying? That’s why I compare him to a jazz artist because he rhymes and riffs. And then at the same time what he’s saying has so much color in the same way a jazz artist [scatting]. Incredible. Brilliant. You’re arguing and asking yourself is it brilliant colorful scribble or is it like really eloquent calligraphy? Is the way he’s rhyming, is that a drumroll or is that like an AR-15 with a banana clip? What is that? That is what a jazz musician is always able to do, a really good one.