Nov 11, 20263 min read

Kendrick Record Powers Anime Western Train Fight

Kendrick did not record a note for this show. His 2015 record still walks into a steampunk Western, takes over a train fight, and leaves as the scene.

OMYGOTTI

Toronto hip-hop artist | 730K+ Facebook

A Train Fight With A Serious Soundtrack Decision

A clip from Bass X Machina is moving this week for one reason. Bass Reeves, voiced by Brian Tyree Henry, stands in a train car gunfight, gives the men facing him one last chance to reconsider while he reloads, and then a remixed version of Kendrick Lamars The Blacker The Berry drops into the action. HotNewHipHop and ItsBizKit both describe the same sequence and the same detail that matters. This is not the album cut pasted under a scene. The song was reworked to fit the sound design of the episode.

Wild 94.1 adds the frame around it. Bass X Machina launched on Netflix on November 3 with all six episodes at once. It is a sci fi steampunk Western adult animated series created by LeSean Thomas, with a voice cast that includes Henry, Cree Summer and Janelle Monae. The placement is in the opening movement of the series, which means the creators used one of the heaviest records on To Pimp A Butterfly to tell the audience exactly what kind of show this is.

Why This Record, Why This Hero

The choice is not decoration. ScreenRant, reviewing the series, singles out the soundtrack as central to how the show wears its culture, naming the Kendrick track and Charles Bradleys Aint It A Sin as the impactful needle drops, over a score by Wondaland brothers Roman GianArthur and Nate Wonder. Gizmodo makes the sharper point. A show that was not tapped in would have grabbed whatever rap song sat on a chart. This one reached for a record about identity, rage and history, for a hero who was a real Black deputy marshal west of the Mississippi.

There is a Toronto thread in the credits too. 13th Street Promotions notes the original track, by Kendrick Lamar and Agent Sasco, was produced by Boi-1da with Terrace Martin and the KOZ for the Grammy winning To Pimp A Butterfly in 2015. A beat built partly in this city is now scoring an anime Western on the biggest streaming platform on earth, eleven years after the album. Catalogue is not a museum. Placed right, it is still a weapon.

Anime Keeps Borrowing From Rap, And Rap Keeps Winning

Wild 94.1 notes this placement adds to Kendricks existing connection with anime inspired imagery, and the early numbers suggest the bet is working. The same report cites a 100 percent critics score and a 92 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes in the shows first days. Strong reviews do not come from one song. They come faster when every choice in a production points the same direction, and this soundtrack points like it means it.

My take is that placements like this are the quiet second career of great albums. Streaming pays for the record forever, but a scene like this reintroduces it to viewers who were children when To Pimp A Butterfly arrived, or who never sat with it at all. Kendrick recorded nothing new, shot nothing, posted nothing. His catalogue walked into a new medium and took the room anyway. That is what a classic actually does.