{"id":793894,"date":"2019-03-15T14:53:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T20:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=808753"},"modified":"2019-03-15T14:53:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T20:53:15","slug":"anderson-paaks-king-james-falls-short-of-its-lofty-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/anderson-paaks-king-james-falls-short-of-its-lofty-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Anderson .Paak\u2019s \u2018King James\u2019 Falls Short of Its Lofty Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Anderson .Paak<\/a> is earnest. That\u2019s not a bad or damning trait \u2014 in fact, it\u2019s responsible for much of his success \u2014 but at times it can be a grating one. On his latest, \u201cKing James,\u201d .Paak crafts his take on the protest song, but its terminally laid back delivery threatens to leech it of meaning. \u201cKing James\u201d touches upon the border crisis, police murdering African-Americans and, at one point, finds .Paak singing from the perspective of Colin Kaepernick, detailing the athlete-activist\u2019s forced exit from the NFL for taking a knee in protest to law enforcement\u2019s pattern of racially fueled killings.<\/p>\n

The three-minute song never manages to do much besides point at misfortune and sing platitudes in response. It\u2019s unfair to expect any musician to fully grapple with the weight of oppression currently endured by people of color in the Trump era, but it\u2019s also not too much to ask for something that digs a little deeper than this. Phrases like \u201cThey can\u2019t gentrify the heart of kings\u201d and \u201cWe salute King James for using his chains to create some equal opportunities\u201d are great Instagram captions, but so-so lyrics.<\/p>\n

Witnessing innocent blacks getting executed in the streets or families ripped away from each other are traumatic experiences, but nowhere on \u201cKing James\u201d do I leave with an understanding of how these experiences make .Paak feel, except vaguely hopeful for the future. The horns are triumphant, the drumming is energetic and the backing vocals pristine, but those elements mask Anderson\u2019s lyrical handicaps in a sheen of nostalgia for black music of yore. If you don\u2019t listen too closely, the bassline could distract you from the fact that the lyrical content is a departure for the typically sunny rapper.<\/p>\n

Maybe \u201cKing James\u201d is what some people need, and .Paak clearly cares about what he\u2019s rapping about \u2014 but his method of communication lacks urgency and stakes, and ultimately leaves him in a lurch.<\/p>\n

Anderson .Paak will release his latest album, Ventura<\/em><\/a>, on April 12th.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anderson .Paak is earnest. That\u2019s not a bad or damning trait \u2014 in fact, it\u2019s responsible for much of his success \u2014 but at times it can be a grating one. On his latest, \u201cKing James,\u201d .Paak crafts his take on the protest song, but its terminally laid back delivery threatens to leech it of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 13:46:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}