Kendrick Lamar Mad City
Music, Film, TV and Political News Coverage. Oct 19, 2012 - Kendrick Lamar has at last revealed the meaning of the acronym in the title of his just-leaked new album, good kid, m.A.A.d. In an interview.
'You know Compton,' rumbles Kendrick Lamar. 'You don't hear no artists from Compton showing vulnerability. You always hear about the person pulling the trigger. You never hear about the one in front of it.'
There are a lot of sharp observations in Kendrick Lamar's debut album, good kid, m.A.A.d city. But the most perceptive, the one that best proves that the Compton MC stands apart from forebears like NWA and Snoop Dogg, is found on the song Money Tree: 'Everybody gon' respect the shooter/But the one in front of the gun lives forever'. It's the psychology of the victim, the thought process of the person facing the possibility of their demise that fascinates Lamar. 'That's the most interesting story to me,' he nods. 'At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I'll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.'
An ability to look differently at the world surrounding him is what makes Lamar stand out. Set in 2004, the narrative of good kid… sees him beaten up, set up, left broken-hearted. This is a Compton rapper who gets told off by his mum, catches an STD, and vomits from too much drink. The 25-year-old may rap about guns, but he's far from a gangsta rapper. He celebrates his neighbourhood but does not glamourise criminality, deconstructing the gangster mentality rather than glorifying it. 'People are used to music that justifies street culture but something that's not touched on is why these kids act the way they act, live the way they live,' he says. 'The true story behind this album is showing how the world looks at my friends as delinquents when they are good kids at heart. They have great hearts. But from the time they was born in the 80s, when crack was everywhere, they had no figure to guide them. Father in jail, mother strung out. I knew I was blessed with a gift of having both parents. That right there gave me a little bit more insight than a few of my other homeboys. My parents being there gave me a whole lot of confidence.'
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Lamar is the type of lyrically complex, politically savvy artist who would normally be confined to the underground rap scene, making his incredible commercial success all the more startling. He has little of Drake's pop and gloss, zero chart-friendly Euro-beats and no obvious single, while the only mentions of cars and cash are to confirm that he has neither. Yet his major-label debut, released in October, sold 241,000 copies in the US in its first week alone, second only in the Billboard charts to Taylor Swift's behemoth Red. To put that into perspective, Kanye's GOOD Music project Cruel Summer did 205,000 in its first seven days, while Rick Ross shifted 218,000. Lamar even bettered Rihanna's Unapologetic by 3,000.
Hip-hop and its audience, it seems, are maturing, and it's Lamar, more than any other MC to make their name this year – 2 Chainz, Meek Mill and Chief Keef among them – who's most representative of this shift in temperament. The newer rappers are aided by a generation of elder statesmen: Jay-Z joined Bruce Springsteen for Obama's re-election campaign and Jay, Kanye West and 50 Cent all came out in support of gay marriage.
'Hip-hop is a little more grown up now,' Lamar notes. '[In the past] you wouldn't have hardcore rappers attempting to talk about anything like a gay marriage cos they would feel it was wrong for their image. When you get people in hip-hop unafraid to discuss these topics, it is an evolution.' That his album has bucked the trend and outsold the likes of Rick Ross shouldn't be understated. Lamar puts this down to the fact he's put his vulnerabilities on show. 'At the end of the day [my success] is because people perceived me as a human being rather than an action figure that can't be touched.'
That Lamar is different from your average rapper is immediately apparent upon meeting him. He arrives at the Guardian's photo shoot with an entourage that's tiny by hip-hop standards; just his manager, a label rep and a mate-cum-minder. No discernible jewellery adorns his person and he's wearing what looks suspiciously like a duffle coat. The name of Lamar's crew, Black Hippy, seems fitting.
'At the end of the day [my success] is because people perceived me as a human being rather than an action figure that can't be touched'
Everyone loves Lamar. Dr Dre signed him, Drake chose him as tour support, Lady Gaga was supposed to appear on the album (Lamar insists they couldn't sort the paperwork in time for release). Snoop hailed him, live onstage, as 'the new leader of the west coast' (and made Lamar cry in the process). Pharrell Williams, meanwhile, paid him the highest of compliments, tweeting: '[He is] this era's Bob Dylan. Masterful storytelling. Listen to it, it will elevate you. And just like that music has changed.'
'Yeah I think he has a point,' Lamar nods, at the same time both self-confident and shy. 'I pride myself on how I formulate my words, that my storytelling is consistently deep and intricate.'
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born in Compton in 1987 to a family steeped in gang culture. His father had been part of Chicago's infamous Gangster Disciples, and his attempts to leave that life were thwarted when he and Lamar's mother landed in the crack-flooded, gang-polluted Compton of the 1980s. Though both parents worked regular jobs, some of their extended family became embroiled in the internecine conflict between the Crips and Bloods. Lamar's uncle was shot and killed, and various cousins went to prison. His album artwork is a photo of a young Lamar with his dad, who's holding a rather large shotgun. 'They weren't the most straight-arrow parents,' he admits with a grin, 'but that was my dad in his young, wild days. It was normal to me, guns in the house. They kept them away from me, though. They were smart enough to do that. But I seen it.'
Sensing that their softly spoken, thoughtful son had a talent worth nurturing, the entire family – cousins, parents, uncles and so on – chose to protect Lamar from gang life. As noted on good kid…, he flirted with gangs and committed a robbery, but his ambitions stretched beyond the street. He was always wrapped up in books and films and telling stories, making him a 'difficult' child. 'My family seen I had a fond passion for certain things, and I was real intricate with the detail, watching and studying. Even though I was surrounded by all this [gang] stuff, it wasn't in my nature. Music became my outlet, and I ran with it.' His sense for composition and his lyrical ability, so keenly felt on good kid…, can be traced back to elementary school. 'Storytelling was something I found a knack for. The teacher would say, 'Go, write', and we'd be writing three stories in 30 minutes. My imagination would just wander.'
'Even though I was surrounded by all this [gang] stuff, it wasn't in my nature. Music became my outlet, and I ran with it'
Kendrick was eight when his dad took him to watch Dr Dre and Tupac shoot the video for California Love, just two blocks away from his own home. Thirteen years, an EP and a flurry of mixtapes later, Lamar found himself being nurtured by Dre himself. The producer saw Lamar on YouTube and signed him (not quite on the spot – the process took three years). Though Dre doesn't produce anything on good kid…, he guests on album closer Compton, and his presence is felt in the flawless mastering and mixing.
While the album might not necessarily make the world a better place, it does refresh your belief in hip-hop. It's heartening, brilliant in fact, that a rapper like Kendrick Lamar can be as appreciated and celebrated as much as Rick Ross's monotonous materialism, or Nicki Minaj's shameless commercialisation. He may have cried at the time, but if he's feeling the pressure of Snoop, Dre and the Game's endorsement, he doesn't show it today. 'It's a responsibility, more than a pressure, cos I've got to carry on the legacy. I can't half-ass anything that I do,' he insists. 'This album is a self-portrait. It's a piece to help me move on with my life and get past my former demons and better myself as a person. It was really a growing process so when I go back and listen to this, I can say, 'I did it'. Not just for me, but for people in Compton, too.'
Kendrick Lamar tours the UK, starting at O2 Academy, Newcastle on 15 Jan
DRE'S PROTEGES
More rappers signed up by the good Doctor
Snoop Dogg
Dre enlisted Warren G's friend Snoopy for the Deep Cover soundtrack before making him The Chronic's star. Doggystyle followed, and he's been dropping it like it's hot ever since,
Eminem
Dre took a punt on the macabre musings of an angry white boy from Detroit. Marshall Mathers went on to become the biggest-selling rapper of all time.
50 Cent
He may have been bullet-riddled when he met Eminem and Dr Dre, but Fiddy became one of hip-hop's biggest stars in the early noughties.
The Game
Dre's other pick from Compton, Jayceon Taylor's star might not be so ascendant these days, but his debut The Documentary is regarded as a rap classic.
http://www.facebook.com/KendrickLamarmusic twitter.com/kendricklamar
- Genre
- Hip Hop
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