From the Super Bowl to the sidebar…

[Video]
[7.10]

Claire Davidson: I understand what Kendrick Lamar is trying to achieve with his delivery here: after all, “luther” is a very low-key love song, its predominant theme being lovers who provide care and respite for each other in the face of outside chaos. Yet there’s a difference between sounding relaxed and just seeming disengaged, and Lamar unfortunately leans toward the latter, his voice too subdued to be truly expressive. Compare this to SZA, whose trademark as a singer is her ethereal openness, and she ends up overshadowing Lamar on his own track. That being said, “luther” is still very endearing, conveying that spirit of breezy generosity with rich strings, fluttery keyboards, and sweet harmonies between the two vocalists, who still have chemistry in spite of their different approaches. 
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Al Varela: One of Kendrick’s most underrated aspects as a rapper is his ability to make pop music without compromising the core of his music. He’s a legit romantic and his gentle, husky singing voice is a joy to listen to even when he’s not spitting or writing elaborate bars. His back and forth with SZA on “luther”, paired with the elegant sweeping production and gorgeous Luther Vandross sample is the best work these two have ever made together. Their charisma is so natural, and it never feels like one is overpowering the other. It’s a mutual love where both partners are perfectly in sync. 
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Alfred Soto: I’m here for Kendrick ‘n’ SZA’s Marvin ‘n’ Tammi routine, and the shrewd interpolation of Luther Vandross’ “If This World Were Mine” reinforces the rapper’s king-of-the-world status without ironizing it; but this is the  kind of valentine to a sex worker that a Pulitzer Prize winner should’ve sneezed past.
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Mark Sinker: Docked a point for how he sings “fah fah fah”, which bugs me for no reasons I can name. And a second for supplying this pleasing summery buzz and hum when it’s still months away from summer. And a third because doesn’t Luther sampled crack little doors in the desired surface of the purr? He’s Luther, he’s a bigger deal than this song, he’s somewhere you’d maybe rather be?
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Jonathan Bradley: Vandross is the sample, but Kendrick has spoken enough on the evils of Lucy that I wonder if he has more nefarious ends in mind with this Luther. If so, he should make more of it. He declines to kumbaya, so that’s something: “She’s a fan, he’s a flop.” SZA and Kendrick do make a pretty pair, draping the arrangement in artful melody, but the appeal of GNX is its denuded intensity; the album isn’t worse for a slow jam, but it didn’t need one. This occupies the spot “Poetic Justice” held on Good Kid, m.A.A.d City, except it’s kinda dull. 
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Katherine St. Asaph: A sweet little interlude, in the sense that an interlude is defined by what’s around it.
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Taylor Alatorre: I wish this were sequenced at the end of GNX so it could more perfectly evoke the narrative of the triumphant Odysseus, returning to Ithaca and slaughtering the suitors in order to restore that most cherished ideal of domestic quietude. Some rappers nakedly grasp for such classical models of heroism, but Kendrick and SZA assume the mantle naturally, without the need for any ham-handed lyrical allusions on their part; some tropes are so powerful they just can’t help but reoccur.
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TA Inskeep: Lamar’s verse just sits there, SZA provides some tender crooning relief (even singing lines like “fuckin’ on the low”), but what makes this is the very very smart use of the 1982 Cheryl Lynn/Luther Vandross Quiet Storm classic cover of  “If This World Were Mine.” (And a few 808 beats, which never hurt.) I wouldn’t say “luther” is a great song, but it’s an effective one.
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Nortey Dowuona: So happy that Kendrick finally replaced Drake as the soft rapper du jour. I mean, if he could actually sing that whole unpleasantness of last year need not have happened. szaonthedot soon come.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I was originally not planning to blurb this — it’s another tasteful, artfully wrought collaborations between two artists that we’ve already spilled untold pixels about our love for. But last night I dreamt of a stadium full of people, all singing along to this. I file this review not as a critic but as an oracle.
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