A sonic exploration and tonal analysis of contemporary creative music in a myriad of improvisational/composed settings, textures, and expressions.
Welcome to Sound Projections
I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.
Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions
and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of ‘Jazz’, ‘classical music’, ‘Blues.’
'Rhythm and Blues’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Pop’, ‘Funk’, ‘Hip Hop’, etc. in order to search for what individual
artists and ensembles do cretively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what
music is and could be.
So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay
homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Kendrick Lamar (b. June 17, 1987): Outstanding, versatile, and innovative composer, rapper, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher
Indisputably the most acclaimed rap artist of his generation, Kendrick Lamar
is one of those rare MCs who has achieved critical and commercial
success while earning the respect and support of those who inspired him.
After several years of development, Lamar hit his creative and chart-topping stride in the 2010s. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012), the Grammy-winning To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), and the Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning DAMN.
(2017), his three proper major-label albums, have displayed an
unmatched mix of inventive wordplay and compelling conceptual
narratives, examining internal conflict, flaunting success, and
uplifting his community. The screenplay-level detail of Lamar's
writing has been enriched by a collective of producers,
instrumentalists, singers, and rappers, a high percentage of whom --
including inspirations Dr. Dre and MC Eiht, and contemporaries Sounwave and Jay Rock -- represent Lamar's native Los Angeles. Lamar's cinematic and collaborative inclinations inevitably attracted the mainstream film industry. Black Panther: The Album (2018) was the source of three of Lamar's Top Ten pop hits.
Compton, California native Kendrick Lamar Duckworth
grew up immersed in hip-hop culture and surrounded by gang activity. As
a youngster, he gradually discovered an aptitude for writing stories,
poems, and lyrics, which naturally led to rapping. He made a name for
himself as K. Dot.
At the age of 16 in 2003, he issued his debut mixtape, The Hub City
Threat: Minor of the Year. While it merely hinted at the potential of
the then teenager, it was impressive enough to catch the attention of
Top Dawg Entertainment and led to a long-term association with the label
that steadily propelled his career. Training Day, the Jay Rock collaboration No Sleep 'til NYC, and C4, issued from 2005 through 2009, likewise preceded Lamar's decision to go by his first and middle names. The last of the three was issued the same year he became part of Black Hippy, a group whose members -- including fellow TDE artists Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and ScHoolboy Q -- frequently appeared on one another's mixtapes and albums.
The first tape credited to Kendrick Lamar
was Overly Dedicated, released in September 2010. Also the rapper's
first commercial release, it reached enough listeners to enter
Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. After XXL magazine selected
him for the 2011 Freshman Class feature, Lamar released his first official album, Section.80,
that July, and crossed into the Billboard 200, reaching number 113.
With deeper conceptual narratives and sharpened melodic hooks, as well
as comparative multi-dimensional development from primary producer Sounwave, the set acted as a kind of warning flare for Lamar's mainstream rap dominance. In addition to the dozens of tracks he had appeared on by then, Lamar had the support of veteran West Coast stars as well. During a concert later in 2011, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Game dubbed him "The New King of the West Coast," a notion Dre endorsed more significantly by signing Lamar to his Interscope-affiliated Aftermath label.
Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Lamar's
major-label debut, was released in October 2012 and entered the
Billboard 200 at number two. Three of its singles -- "Swimming Pools
(Drank)," "Poetic Justice," and "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" -- reached
the Top Ten of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and went Top 40
pop. More significantly, the album showcased Lamar
as an exceptional storyteller capable of making compelling concept
albums. It led to Grammy nominations in four categories: Best New
Artist, Album of the Year, Best Rap Album, and Best Rap/Sung
Collaboration (for "Now or Never," a deluxe edition bonus cut featuring Mary J. Blige). Miguel's "How Many Drinks?" and A$AP Rocky's "Fuckin' Problems," two tracks on which Lamar made guest appearances, were nominated as well.
Rather than rest, Lamar remained active during 2013-2014, touring as well as appearing on tracks by the likes of Tame Impala, YG, and fellow Top Dawg affiliate SZA. The proud single "i" was released in September of the latter year, became Lamar's
fourth Top 40 single, and won Grammys for Best Rap Performance and Best
Rap Song. Still rolling, he announced in early 2015 that his third
album, To Pimp a Butterfly, would be out in March with tracks featuring Snoop Dogg, Bilal, Thundercat, and George Clinton.
A technical error caused the digital version to be released eight days
early, but the LP nonetheless topped the Billboard 200 with sales of
325,000 copies within its first week. It made numerous best-of lists at
the end of the year and won the Grammy for Best Rap Album. The defiant
and life-affirming "Alright," which was quickly adopted by the Black
Lives Matter activist movement, along with another single, "These
Walls," took awards for Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best
Rap/Sung Collaboration. Riding high on his wins and a striking Grammy
ceremony performance, Lamar followed up in March 2016 with untitled unmastered.,
consisting of demos recorded during the previous three years. Like the
previous release, it debuted at number one, and seamlessly synthesized
beatmaking and traditional musicianship from the likes of Sounwave, Terrace Martin, and Thundercat. Within a month, Lamar added to his ever-lengthening discography of featured appearances with his contribution to Beyoncé's "Freedom."
Led by "HUMBLE.," his first number one pop hit, DAMN.
arrived in April 2017 and likewise entered the Billboard 200 at the
top. Remarkably, all 14 of its songs entered the Hot 100, and it was
certified multi-platinum within three months. Among the contributors
were Rihanna and U2, but at this point, the supporting roles were beneficial more for the guest artists than they were for Lamar, whose artistic clout was unrivaled. Lamar snagged five more Grammys. DAMN.
won Best Rap Album. "HUMBLE." took Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song,
and Best Video. Best Rap/Sung Performance went to "LOYALTY," the Rihanna collaboration. Another number one hit followed in February 2018. The soundtrack Black Panther: The Album featured Lamar on every track. "All the Stars" (with SZA), "King's Dead" (with Jay Rock and Future) and "Pray for Me" (with the Weeknd), its three singles, eventually hit the Top Ten. That April, DAMN.
won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. It was the first time the judges
recognized a work outside the genres of classical and jazz. Months
later, "King's Dead" made Lamar
a 13-time Grammy winner. The track took the award for Best Rap
Performance. "All the Stars" alone was nominated in four categories,
while Black Panther was up for Album of the Year. The film itself was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In
our new series on the art of sampling, hip-hop producers demonstrate
how they find inspiration in classics, hidden gems, found sounds and
other raw musical materials to create new hits. For each of the five
videos in the series, NPR Music has asked a writer we love to do
something similar. Their only instruction was to watch one of the
videos, pick an element that inspired them, and spin it off in a new
direction — to sample it.
Today, writer Marcus J. Moore, the author of the forthcoming book The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America,
looks at Lamar's relationship with contemporary and historical jazz
musicians. Lamar's song "DUCKWORTH." is made up of three beats by
producer 9th Wonder (the subject of today's video) that are each built
around a different sample from a different genre and different
generation.
For certain
older jazz heads thinking of their beloved genre, the image that comes
to mind is of custom Italian suits and smoke billowing through cramped
clubs. There's likely a guy with an instrument in the foreground, behind
him is another guy keeping pace on a drum kit. For some jazz listeners,
the music should've stayed here — stuck somewhere between the
1940s and '50s, before Miles Davis plugged in his trumpet, and before
John Coltrane blew his sax to summon God. To them, pianist Herbie
Hancock should've left funk to hippies like Sly Stone, and saxophonist
Pharoah Sanders needed to cool it with the "elephant shrieks."
It's
not just jazz purists who resist change; across all genres, the
struggle between tradition and the future has been unfolding in regular,
repeating cycles. '90s hip-hop is considered the "golden era," when
lyricists like Nas, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Jay-Z came of age, and rap
after that isn't seen as comparable. There's this notion that "the music
died after us," and those flare-ups arise when some younger rapper
doesn't know Biggie lyrics, or he thinks rap began with the Lil's and
Yung's. At every turn in music, there are people who resist change, but
you can't bend culture by playing it safe.
So it's not that jazz purists didn't want
the music to evolve, it's that the new thing was quite different from
the old — less reverent, less familiar, beholden to a new set of rules
or priorities. Albums like Davis' Bitches Brew and Hancock's Head Hunters
blended jazz with rock and funk, paving the way for future anarchists
like trumpeter Roy Hargrove and pianist Robert Glasper to work at the
points where jazz met conscious hip-hop, neo-soul, and alt-rock. They
ascended at a time when jazz wasn't so popular in mainstream music:
Traces of it could be heard in the early work of The Roots, and in
sampled form on records by A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. But
as pop and hip-hop grew in demand, jazz faded from mainstream public
view.
That was until 2015, when rap superstar Kendrick Lamar
brought new light to a hybrid of jazz and rap that had been happening
underground. His second major-label album, To Pimp a Butterfly,
was an expansive collage of hip-hop, funk and soul, with jazz firmly
affixed to the center. That was due to Kendrick and Terrace Martin, a
producer and multi-instrumentalist who studied under jazz great Reggie
Andrews at Locke High School in South Los Angeles. Martin had been a
go-to guy for Kendrick and his label, Top Dawg Entertainment, since the
mid-2000s, and for To Pimp a Butterfly, he tapped into his
network of jazz musicians in L.A. and beyond to add brass, live bass and
keys to a wide-ranging palette of beats from the likes of Pharrell,
Sounwave and Flying Lotus. The goal, trombonist Ryan Porter once told
me, was to dilute the 808 drums for a lush soundscape. With musicians
like Porter, Glasper, saxophonist Kamasi Washington, trumpeter Josef
Leimberg and bassist Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner in the mix, Butterfly is
easily Kendrick's most sonically ambitious album, and the one fans have
the toughest time digesting, especially when compared with good kid, m.A.A.d. city's cinematic sheen and DAMN.'s club-ready bravado.
I've
spoken with many of Kendrick's collaborators, and they all say the same
thing: He's a jazz musician in rapper's clothing, whether or not the
music is shaped by musicians who are classically trained in that genre.
Just ask Martin. "He was like, 'Man, a lot of the chords that you pick
are jazz-influenced. You don't understand: You a jazz musician by
default,'" Kendrick once told producer Rick Rubin for GQ.
"And that just opened me up. And he just started breaking down
everything, the science, going back to Miles, Herbie Hancock." Glasper,
in an interview for my book about Kendrick,
doubled down. "Kendrick had so much respect from everybody," he told
me. "He spoke to the jazz cats, to the music nerds, to the backpack
rappers, the gangsters. That's the real 'hip-hop meets jazz' right
there. That was something I was already doing in my world, but for
Kendrick to do it, it changed everything."
On the surface, DAMN. isn't knitted to the jazz world the way Butterfly was,
but Kendrick is no different than Miles, Coltrane and Herbie before
him: though he's rooted in rap, he pushes his art to unforeseen places,
bending the culture to what he's doing. Like those icons, Kendrick has
an innate sense of timing and space, giving his words the same weight
that they gave their notes. On certain tracks, like the hard-charging
"DNA." and "HUMBLE.," he'll suffocate the music with rapid-fire rhymes;
on "FEEL." and "LUST.," he'll slide up and down the register to convey
the right emotion for different sections of the beat. He knows when to
surge forward and when to let it breathe. As a result, Kendrick is
introducing jazz to a generation who might only know it through their
parents' old record collections. Listeners might not realize he's doing
this when they listen to an album like DAMN., even if they
heard jazz more overtly on his previous LP. Like the legends before him,
Kendrick challenged preconceived notions of what jazz is supposed to
be, moving it beyond those who'd rather the genre stay in small clubs
with cigarettes and martinis.
Where Butterfly was rooted in hard bop, DAMN. seemed steeped in the late '60s and early '70s, when jazz was murkier and more psychedelic. Equally complex and ambitious, DAMN. is more palatable than Butterfly, but no less vibrant. For some, the fact that it wasn't as musically complicated somehow counted against DAMN.,
but vestiges of the past are still there — in the bluesy saunter of
"FEAR." and the acoustic soul of "FEEL." But it's on album closer
"DUCKWORTH.," produced by 9th Wonder, that the elements of jazz, hip-hop
and soul come into the sharpest focus. 9th has a history of blending
records from all genres into kaleidoscopic sets of deep soul and
hip-hop. Each track has its own distinctive flair, but you can still
tell it's a 9th Wonder beat — the drums lock into a hypnotic groove and
the vocal samples crack with nostalgic beauty. "DUCKWORTH." mashes three
beats into a tight coil of repurposed folk, progressive rock and
experimental soul, on which Kendrick details a chance encounter between
his father, Kenny Duckworth, and his future label boss, Anthony "Top
Dawg" Tiffith. Years before "Top Dawg" became a music mogul, he walked
into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and saw Kendrick's future father working
there. "Top" was planning to rob the restaurant and stood in Kenny's
line to demand the cash. But Kenny had seen "Top" rob and shoot up the
store before, so to spare his own life, he gave him free chicken and two
extra biscuits to get on his good side. "You take two strangers and put
'em in random predicaments," Kendrick rapped. "Whoever thought the
greatest rapper would be from coincidence?"
Originally titled
"Life Is Like A Box Of Chicken," it was actually Kendrick's idea to
combine these three distinct beats from 9th Wonder into one
shapeshifting whole. In December 2015, 9th played 20 beats for Kendrick;
he didn't find out until the following June that the rapper had
stitched his music together in such a manner. "... He sent me a video
snippet of him playing an mp3 off his computer," 9th told The Recording Academy in 2018.
"It was a 9-second clip that played right when the beat changed. After
it was over, I hit him back saying, 'Yo man, what the hell?' and he put
'LOL' and that was it." A story like this exemplifies what Martin,
Glasper and others have said about Kendrick — that while he'll propose
strange ideas, he's accrued such a level of genius that you have to let
the vision unfold. He's a musician's musician, with a keen awareness of
what sounds good in the moment, and he doesn't get enough credit as a
producer. Sure, it's 9th Wonder's name on the beats, but Kendrick molded
them to match his own expansive vision, essentially making a new
instrumental framework to reflect the story of his own life. What
Kendrick did is no different than what a bandleader does.
This,
in essence, is jazz — the art of improvising, a high-wire act between
like-minds without a safety net beneath it. Be it music, fine art or
creative writing, it's essential to trek the road less traveled, to
present work the public doesn't know it needs until it arrives. Now it
isn't so risky to release a jazz album — artists like Thundercat and
Kamasi command big space on the marquee, and labels like International
Anthem and Astral Spirits are go-to places for avant-garde music created
by those who aren't wedded entirely to specific jazz scenes. Through
sonic ingenuity and fluid storytelling, "DUCKWORTH." is the high-water
mark of Kendrick's Pulitzer Prize-winning album and the arguable
centerpiece of his unique rap-jazz aesthetic. He's at the vanguard of
this movement, proving that he too is a rule breaker, just like Miles,
Herbie, Coltrane, Glasper and Hargove, who all took bold creative risks
to push jazz into uncharted territory.
‘To Pimp A Butterfly’: How Kendrick Looked Back To Push Music Forward
A dazzling album
that defined black America both musically and lyrically, ‘To Pimp A
Butterfly’ is a visionary album that will resonate for decades to come.
The critical and commercial success of Kendrick Lamar’s second album, 2012’s Good Kid, MAAD City,
totally changed the Compton rapper’s life. He had gone from a respected
artist with a decent-sized, devoted fanbase to an award-winning,
multi-platinum writer considered by some to be the voice of his
generation. The album was a nuanced, multi-faceted account of Lamar’s
upbringing in Compton, its vivid vignettes on gang violence,
institutional racism, street politics, costly mistakes and dead-end
disillusionment the stuff of gritty Hollywood fare. And it came in the
shape of thrilling, straight-shooting West Coast hip-hop, with Lamar’s
dexterous wordplay and nimble approach to voicings elevating it to
another level. Three years later, then, when To Pimp A Butterfly was finally ready for release, expectations were extremely high.
The first taste of Good Kid…’s follow-up was released in
September 2014 in the shape of the Isley Brothers-sampling ‘i’. An
upbeat slice of radio-friendly funky hip-hop, it preached a positive
message of self-love and celebrated individuality, but seemed perhaps
lighter than many had expected. When To Pimp A Butterfly was
released on 15 March 2015, the song was an intrinsic part of the
sprawling narrative Lamar unfurled. Now sounding tougher and more vital
than before, it included a speech from Kendrick mourning the effects of
gang violence and urging black communities to celebrate themselves.
It showed fans there was no second-guessing Kendrick – especially not in a musical sense. To Pimp A Butterfly
sounded unlike anything Lamar had done before: a genre-busting jubilee
in honour of the funkiest, freshest and most out-there elements of
African-American music. He assembled a crack band of the most exciting
jazz musicians of the day, installing saxophone colossus Kamasi
Washington as musical director.
It was as if Lamar sought a music that could tell the story of
black America as vividly as he would in his lyrics; a music that was as
free-flowing and supple as his verses. And this wasn’t some fusty,
old-fashioned take on jazz. The most forward-thinking jazz musicians of
recent times have had hip-hop coursing through their veins, as
Washington has said: “We’ve grown up alongside rappers and DJs, we’ve
heard this music all our life. We are as fluent in J Dilla and Dr Dre as we are in Mingus and Coltrane.”
Among a plethora of gifted musicians at Lamar’s disposal were pianist Robert Glasper,
the producer/horn player Terrace Martin, guitarist Marlon Williams and
bass virtuoso Thundercat – all incredibly versatile players, as adept at
turning their hand to the deep funk of ‘King Kunta’ as they were to the
chaotic free jazz excursions of ‘u’, or the lush, Prince-like slow jam of ‘These Walls’.
Lamar’s narrative was just as ambitious. It’s an intense
exploration of big themes: exploitation, living up to responsibilities,
the importance of staying true to yourself, finding strength in the face
of adversity. Over the course of To Pimp A Butterfly he tells
the story of a rapper finding fame; learning how to “pimp” his talent
for material gain; dealing with the temptations that accompany fame and
wealth; feeling the burden of his new position of influence; turning to
black history and his roots to try to find guidance; dealing with a kind
of survivor’s guilt after leaving his people; and eventually finding
the self-belief and wisdom to share with his community.
But the album is nowhere near as tidy and linear as that sounds. As complicated as the subject demands, To Pimp A Butterfly’s
songs are crammed with deep dives into US history, and just about every
lyric has the listener conflicted as to the narrator’s motive (and,
sometimes, even the identity of the narrator).
All of this would be worth little if the album didn’t communicate all of its ideas effectively. Somehow, however, To Pimp A Butterfly
does that brilliantly. A thrilling, genuinely affecting and often
awe-inspiring ride through Lamar’s psyche, it resonated with enough
people for its influence to be felt everywhere: the hope-filled
‘Alright’ was adopted as the unofficial anthem of the Black Lives Matter
movement; there were stories of teachers playing the album to students
to help them better understand the oppression faced by
African-Americans; listening to it influenced David Bowie to move in a jazz-inspired direction on his final album, ★.
With To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar delivered on
expectations and then some. It remains a visionary, landmark album that
will resonate for generations to come.
Pulitzer
Prize–winning “poet laureate of hip-hop” Kendrick Lamar has made
history with his music. As Compton’s favorite son headlines this
summer’s blockbuster Top Dawg Entertainment tour, he grants an intimate
look at what drives him.
Kendrick Lamar, photographed onstage at Jones Beach Theater, in Wantagh, New York, May 30.Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
Kendrick
Lamar understands and employs blues, jazz, and soul in his music, which
makes it startling. His work is more than merely brilliant; it is
magic.—TONI MORRISON
It
takes guts, courage, and skill to shoulder the burden of a generation’s
mind-set. Culturally, Kendrick Lamar is that compass—in fact, a GPS—in
this current Hour of Chaos. That enough is worth a Pulitzer Prize or any
award that sets the bar high.—CHUCK D
I
love everything about his music. I can literally listen to his music
and become a kid growing up with all the struggles in the inner city,
but at the same time [learn] all the lessons it taught that we use as
men today. If you listen to the last verse of “Black Boy Fly,” on good kid, m.A.A.d city, I know exactly what he means—because I was that kid.—LEBRON JAMES
The
minute I hear good news, it just motivates me to do more. I don’t want
to get complacent. If you asked seven out of ten people, ‘What would you
do if you got the Pulitzer Prize?,’ they’d say, ‘I’d put my feet up.’
But that would make me feel I’d reached my pinnacle at 30 years old, and
that wouldn’t make me feel good.—KENDRICK LAMAR
Memorial day, Peter Luger Steak House, Brooklyn: Kendrick Lamar orders
salmon. He is wearing a black baseball cap, white t-shirt, and
gray-and-blue pants, and I’m seated to his right at an upstairs table
for 10. To my right is Kendrick’s TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment)
label-mate, rapper, and friend Jay Rock, and the rest of our lunch party
is comprised of friends and associates of Kendrick’s: Dave Free, his
friend since ninth grade, manager, co-director of their groundbreaking
videos, and TDE president; Dave’s assistant, Keaton Smith; Kendrick’s
assistant Derrick McCall; photographer/videographer Chris Parsons; head
of TDE security 2Teez; TDE general manager ret One; and publicist Ray
Alba. Except for Kendrick’s fish choice, everyone else orders
cheeseburgers and steak—medium rare. Platters of French fries and
creamed spinach are brought to the table. Despite people sitting at
tables all around us, we are left alone. Kendrick, who has a reputation
as enigmatic and shy, warms up as we talk about music, basketball,
government, taxes, other rappers, and awards. I tell them that LeBron
James wore a TDE t-shirt at practice the day before—prior to Game 7 of
the Eastern Conference finals. We talk about Madison Square Garden,
where, the following night, Kendrick will perform his first sold-out
headlining show at the world’s most famous arena as part of the 30-date
TDE Championship tour, with a lineup of the label’s artists. We talk
about the changes in Harlem, the changes in Brooklyn, and how New York
is no longer the city that never sleeps. There is a wide-ranging
conversation about the music Kendrick grew up listening to in Compton,
California: the Temptations (he was named for lead singer Eddie
Kendricks), Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, and gangsta
rap—and I answer queries about my interviews of yesteryear. I tell
Kendrick to forget about the three times he was nominated for the
best-album Grammy and didn’t win (although I didn’t say it quite so
politely) and congratulate him on winning the Pulitzer Prize—the first
for a non-classical or non-jazz musician, and the first for a rapper.
Kendrick always appears to be thinking, or listening, until he breaks
into a gap-toothed grin, or a laugh. These guys know each other
well—especially Dave and Kendrick, who finish each other’s
sentences—and the vernacular is unfiltered, rooted in hip-hop and the
streets of Compton.
Lamar,
photographed in the Bronx. Lamar wears a hoodie by Reigning Champ;
T-shirt by H&M; jewelry by Chrome Hearts; hair products by R+Co;
grooming products by Chanel.Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
Following lunch, we all get into a Mercedes Sprinter, stopping at a
pop-up store on Hudson Street in Manhattan that sells a clothing
collaboration between TDE and Nike (with whom Kendrick also has a shoe
deal). Then we head uptown to an East Side hotel, where he and I sit and
talk for over an hour.
In addition to winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize for music, Kendrick
Lamar has sold more than 17.8 million albums, been nominated for 29
Grammys, and won 12. His work is archived in the library at Harvard
University. He’s been described as the poet laureate of hip-hop,
perceptive, philosophical, unapologetic, fearless, and an innovative
storyteller whose body of work has been compared to James Joyce and
James Baldwin. He’s collaborated with—among many others—Jay Z,
Eminem, Dr. Dre, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Bono, Pharrell Williams, Jay Rock,
and Maroon 5. He writes about being young, black, poor, and gifted in
America with a candid self-awareness of who he is, where he’s from, and
where he’s been. Musician/producer Pharrell (who worked with Kendrick on
the songs “good kid” and “Alright”) had told me, “He’s the Bob
Dylan, the Miles Davis of our time, but he’s his own thing. His ability
to entertain while educating, without ever being preachy, is amazing.”
I ask Kendrick how he balances his enormous success and celebrity with
his extreme work ethic. “You can get put in an environment that can
bring down your integrity and your fight,” he says. “What gives me an
advantage in my upbringing is the duality of seeing one of the most
beautiful moments of me being 6 years old, to the most tragic moment of
being 13 or 14, and make that connection so the person [listening]
can really see the conflict. It was a mindfuck, for sure. I would wake
up one morning, and it would be cartoons and cereal and walking back
from school. And at 4 P.M., we’d be having a house party ‘til 11
P.M. . .. and people [were] shooting each other outside the door.
That was my lifestyle. And it’s not only mine; it’s so many other
individuals’. And I wanted to tell that story.”
By
the end of listening to his first full album, I felt like I knew
everything about him. He brings you into his world with his lyrics in a
way that really paints a clear picture.—EMINEM
Among other individuals to whom his story resonates are the NBA
basketball players who grew up either in Compton or similar Los Angeles
neighborhoods. According to Orlando Magic forward Arron
Afflalo—name-checked in Kendrick’s song “Black Boy Fly” (“I used to
be jealous of Arron Afflalo”)—“If you’re in Compton, with all that
negativity and violence, and you know you have the talent that Kendrick
obviously has, and you watch someone that’s successful, I don’t think
‘jealous’ is a negative word. It’s something that made him hungry; he
knew what he could become.” Toronto Raptors’ All-Star DeMar DeRozan,
who grew up near Kendrick, says, “Everything he raps about is what we
had to overcome and grow through,” and Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star
point guard Russell Westbrook adds, “He grew up in the same
neighborhoods I grew up in, and to see him be able to explain the
struggles of his upbringing through his music is inspirational; he’s
opening people’s eyes to what people go through in the inner city.”
Lamar before the Jones Beach show
Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
Jay Rock, producer Hykeem Carter, and security director 2Teez backstage.Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born in Compton 31 years ago to Paula
Oliver and Kenny Duckworth and is the oldest of four siblings. He
started freestyling around the age of eight, when, he tells me, he
mostly rapped about drugs. But by the time he was 16, under the name
K.Dot (his closest friends still call him Dot), he got serious about
music. “I was recording in Dave [Free]’s garage,” he tells me,
“and Dave said he had to get my music to Top [Anthony “Top Dawg”
Tiffith], who was getting into the music business. The first day in
the [vocal] booth, Top said, ‘Let me see if this is really you,’ and
I was just freestyling, rapping whatever came into my head, sweating for
two hours.” Dave Free said, “The first time I ever heard him rap, I
had to listen back because it was so developed, super-complex, and I
just couldn’t believe it, since he was so young.” (After Kendrick’s
early E.P.’s and mixtapes, Dave told him that it was time for him to
drop the K.Dot and use his real name.) And Top, now the head of TDE, who
described himself then as “a local street dude who was trying to change
his life for the better,” adds, “What impressed me was how advanced
Kendrick was at 16 years old. He spoke from an adult perspective every
time he touched the mic. Over the course of 15 years, I’ve watched him
evolve from a kid on the corner breaking down street tales to a creative
genius breaking down cultural barriers.”
Kendrick tells me that most of the kids he knew from elementary school
are either dead or in jail. But, he says, he was more grounded because
he had a mother and a father in the home. “It makes a huge
difference,” he says. “It shows you loyalty. When I look around at my
classmates and my friends, they all lived with their grandparents. To
have a mother and a father in your household—this showed me
immediately that anything is possible.” On his major label debut, good
kid, m.A.A.d city, both his parents are heard on answering-machine
tapes, and their language is tough, uninhibited. His mother, after
yelling at him to bring back her van, then turns tender and says, “I
love you, Kendrick,” and tells him to take this music thing seriously,
be a positive person, and come back and tell your stories to your city.
She adds that his music better be something that she and his father
“can step to, because we from Chicago and that’s what we do.”
For
a gentle dude, he throws a righteous punch; I wouldn’t get in the way
of it. No single artist will ever be the antidote to a generation’s
malaise, but just identifying some of the problems really helps.—BONO
Kendrick tells me his parents were young when they left Chicago with
just $500 and wound up in a Compton hotel. “Mom had to go to
McDonald’s to get hired [there]; my father had to find friends, and
it was a whole gang culture. . .. They were learning, and they did
the best they could do as far as protecting me. But they loved to
indulge in that fast lifestyle . . . the partying and everything that
comes with it. My mother encouraged me to dream—she was very proud of
my efforts. My third-grade teacher came up to my mother once at a
parent-teacher meeting and she said, ‘Your son used a word that I was
totally amazed by—he said audacity.’ Even then, it gave me an
advantage in life, to be able to take information, listen to it, and
take a perspective without judging it and do my own research. The
duality was that my father was more like ‘OK, good, now do it again.’
There never was a super-embrace—and it gave me an understanding of
being critiqued. Almost like ‘I know you can do it better, so I’m not
gonna show you how great you are already.’ It was a manipulation that
worked in my favor later in life; by the time I was being critiqued,
there was nothing you could tell me, because I know it’s not my best
anyway.” I ask if growing up he had read a lot of books. “I read the
dictionary,” he said.
We talk about the violence he sings and raps about in good kid, m.A.A.d
city, and Kendrick says, “That was our world. I remember when good kidcame out, the people I grew up with couldn’t understand how we made that
translate through music. They literally cried tears of joy when they
listened to it—because these are people who have been shunned out of
society. But I know the kinds of hearts they have; they’re great
individuals. And for me to tell my story, which is their story as well,
they feel that someone has compassion for us, someone does see us
further than just killers or drug dealers. We were just kids.” I ask
about the line that implies he shot someone at 16, and he just looks at
me, smiles, and eventually says, “I’ll put it this way: I’ve seen my
own blood shed, and I’ve been the cause of other people shedding their
blood as well. There was a split second when I felt what my homeboys
were feeling—like I don’t give a fuck anymore—and that’s when I knew
something else had to happen.” Among the “something else” in his
life: two baptisms, the first at 16 and “again in my 20s—just for
that reassurance and belief in God.”
Paul Rosenberg, Eminem’s manager and the chairman and C.E.O. of Def Jam
Recordings, was the first to bring Kendrick’s music to Dr. Dre, who
signed him to his Aftermath label in a joint deal with TDE. “Kendrick
is an extremely prolific and cerebral rapper,” says Rosenberg. “Every
word is so well placed, so thought out, so meaningful—there’s no dead
space.” And Dr. Dre told me, “The thing that turned me on the most was
when I watched a video of him talking about his music and the passion he
had in his voice about the art. You just knew this guy was destined for
greatness.” Producer Rick Rubin says, “Kendrick is one of the best of
all time—making modern and challenging new music.” He adds, “He
exists on another plane.”
In addition to Kendrick’s extraordinary talent as a writer, rapper, and
producer, he has an ear for melody, and an ability to assume different
voices on his songs—which he tells me he got from listening to Prince
and the music he heard at his parents’ house parties. He also packs so
many words and syllables into one bar of a song without ever stopping
for breath. And through his music, he’s taken on the role of spokesman
for a neighborhood that goes way beyond Compton. I ask him, Why you? “I
put that responsibility on myself. I knew from jump that I thought a
little bit different, people respected me, and if I let myself down, I’d
be letting my guys down. Fast-forward to 2018, I’m in a position where
these guys have 10, 15, 20 years in prison, but I can go in there—and
I do—and tell them that when they get out, you have a job. And my word
stands.”
I ask him about the guns in his Piru (aka Bloods) neighborhood in
Compton, and he says, “I have compassion for, and more understanding
rather than frustration with my homies, because I know it’s not 100
percent their fault. When I look at how society has shaped our
communities, it’s been generations passed down of putting people in
cages to battle each other.” He talks about the survivor’s guilt that
is a recurring theme in his songs, and says, “I had three or four years
of success and celebrity, but I can’t get rid of the 20 years of being
with my homies, and knowing what they go through. I can’t throw that
away. I know a lot of people who could—I’ve seen it—like ‘Fuck you,
I’ve got money now, I’m outta here, I don’t give a fuck about none of
y’all.’ But that was something I couldn’t deal with. I had to sit back
and analyze it and [figure out] other ways I could impact these
people without physically trying to bring the whole hood inside a
hotel.”
Lamar
in a 1985 Buick LeSabre outside the New York Expo Center, in the Bronx.
Lamar wears a hoodie by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
During a solo set at the Hangout Festival in Alabama this past May,
Kendrick brought a white female fan onstage to sing “m.A.A.d city”
with him, as he’s done at many of his concerts. White people usually
know to move the mic away from their mouths when it gets to the parts
with the n-word. She didn’t, and he stopped the show and called her on
it. He and I discuss the ubiquitous use of that word in rap—with the aat the end of it—and the implicit understanding of who can say it and
who cannot. I mention that many rappers have told me that they feel they
have appropriated that word, and taken it back. But Oprah once told Jay
Z in an interview that when she hears it, even with an a at the end, she
thinks of a lynching. Kendrick is thoughtful for a long minute, then he
says, “Let me put it to you in its simplest form. I’ve been on this
earth for 30 years, and there’s been so many things a Caucasian person
said I couldn’t do. Get good credit. Buy a house in an urban city. So
many things—’you can’t do that’—whether it’s from afar or close up.
So if I say this is my word, let me have this one word, please let me
have that word.”
I ask Kendrick about how he writes. “ ‘Execution’ is my favorite
word,” he says. “I spend 80 percent of my time thinking about how I’m
going to execute, and that might be a whole year of constantly jotting
down ideas, figuring out how I’m going to convey these words to a person
to connect to it. What is this word that means this, how did it get here
and why did it go there and how can I bring it back there? Then, the
lyrics are easy.” I ask him how he delivers so many syllables and words
in one line, with no wasted words and juxtapositions like “Halle
Berry/Hallelujah” or a play on words like “Demo-crips and
Re-blood-licans” or “I got power/poison/pain and joy inside my DNA.”
“It comes from my love of hip-hop. Eminem is probably one of the best
wordsmiths ever,” Kendrick says. “There’s a whole list of why, but
just bending words. . . . The Marshall Mathers LP changed my life.”
(Eminem returns the compliment, saying, “He switches up his flow every
few bars so it’s more interesting to listen to.”) Kendrick adds, “My
other favorite word is ‘discipline.’ Discipline gives me all my
unvarnished strength and makes me curious about how disciplined I can
be.”
The following day, we’re backstage at Madison Square Garden prior to
that night’s show. Top is here, wearing a red TDE cap. SZA, the only
female on the TDE label, is determined to perform despite vocal-cord problems that forced her to cancel some tour dates. She says about
Kendrick, “He’s really committed. He takes his natural aptitude and
jacks that shit up to like 50,000. For you to be that naturally talented
already and still want to be better is weird, inspiring, and
beautiful.”
Lamar at the Jones Beach show.Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
In a small room adjacent to Kendrick’s larger, dimly lit dressing room,
he and I talk some more. I tell him it’s hard to imagine that, with his
skill for such rapid-fire rapping, he stuttered as a kid, and he says he
got over it by “just not being in fear of constantly talking to
people—that’s what my mother told me.” He describes himself as
“introverted” rather than shy, and says, “I like to be alone a lot. I
need that. It’s that duality: I can go in front of a crowd of 100,000
people and express myself, then go back, be alone, and collect my
thoughts all over again.” I note that after his opening set on Kanye
West’s 2013 Yeezus tour, he seemed to have flipped a switch and was a
different guy—way more energized and confident as a performer. “I
think it was after my trip to South Africa,” he says. “It gave me a
feeling of awareness and pride, a feeling of where I belong.” One of
his lyrics is about how to be rich and black in America and not “act a
fool,” and he says, “We’ve got to get to the root of never having
these things. I look back to when I was 16 years old and thought, What
would I do with a million dollars? I’m gonna buy this, I’m gonna buy
that . . . Then I thought that me doing that is actually hurting
people I’m responsible for. I’m the first in my family to have this kind
of success, so I took it upon myself to wisely navigate this success,
because I wanted them to be successful, too.”
I tell him that Chuck D once told me that in the 1980s, “We was broke,
but we wasn’t broken,” and Kendrick says, “I love that. I felt that
for sure. Because the times we had to wait for food stamps every month,
or we’d run out of food and had to wait for welfare to kick in, or walk
to the County building—it wasn’t about the County building; it was
about the walk to the building. Because if we didn’t have that County
building to walk to, I wouldn’t have built that bond with my mother, or
my father, to see that this is a family. What Chuck D says resonates so
much with me, because we were broke, but we had us.” I ask him if he
wants to start a family and he says, “This is the constant question,
because I’m obsessed with my craft and what I’m doing. I know what I’m
chasing for my life, even though I don’t know what it is. But it’s an
urge that’s in my every day. That urge to make an ultimate connection
with words to man. And I don’t feel I’ve done that yet.”
We talk about the soundtrack he curated and produced for the blockbuster
film Black Panther, and we discuss what’s involved in an Oscar campaign,
should “All the Stars”—his song with SZA from that soundtrack—be
nominated. (“That would be crazy,” says SZA about a possible Oscar
nomination, “but that’s everything that Dot does.”) Kendrick says that
the TDE Championship tour—the lineup at the Garden included Sir,
Ab-Soul, Isaiah Rashad, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, SZA, and Kendrick—has
always been a dream: “To have our own tour, our own artists,” he says.
“The model was Motown, Bad Boy, Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam, Aftermath.”
Pulling up his long-sleeved t-shirt, he shows me the tattoo going all
the way up his right forearm—“Hustle Like You Broke $”—which he
says was something Top said: “Always have that mentality, don’t be
lax.” We talk about the NFL and the national-anthem protests. He says
he was a football fan, but now “I’m less enthused. It’s enraging; I
think what Kap [Colin Kaepernick] is doing is honest, and it’s not
just his truth, it’s our truth.”
Our talk continues to cover a variety of topics. I say that even though
he lives in Malibu now (and moved his family out of Compton) he’s not
showy, he’s not rapping about bling (he says his father had
jewelry—he’d seen it, and it didn’t interest him), and he doesn’t
boast the same way a lot of rappers do (I tell him that I love that he
didn’t rhyme “Grey Poupon” with “Louis Vuitton”). Still, he calls
himself “the greatest rapper alive,” and, he says, “I owned up to a
lot of hours of just listening and studying and throwing thousands of
pieces of paper away that were garbage. Hours of Top saying, ‘Nah, that
ain’t it, you’re better than that,’ or me saying, ‘Nah, that ain’t
shit.’ ” Are there enough hours in the day for him to do everything he
wants to do? “That’s one of my phrases,” he says. “We need more
hours! I look up, and it’s five in the morning, six in the morning, and
I’m still in the studio. I need 26 . . . 27 . . . we good.”
Then, at 10:15 P.M., with a backdrop that says, “Pulitzer Kenny,”
Kendrick Lamar takes the stage at the Garden for a raging 75-minute
performance. Even with all of the lights, videos, lasers, and pyro, you
cannot take your eyes off him as he delivers a breathtaking, joyful live
set that proves he really does rap all those words without stopping for
breath; a set that includes songs from his three major-label albums:
good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly, and DAMN., the album that
won him the Pulitzer.
Kendrick
Lamar’s work represents some of the most important music being produced
today, period. He fits squarely onstage in the artistic community, like
any other cutting edge, musical genius.—Dana Canedy, administrator, the
Pulitzer Prizes
Rap
is the biggest music out there, and it’s nice that it’s finally getting
the recognition it deserves. For his album to make it onto that
platform is great for all of us. Oh, and I’m also jealous.—Eminem
MAY 30, 2018: The Low Library, at Columbia University, in Manhattan,
where the Pulitzer Prizes are handed out, isn’t very hip-hop—with the
exception of the table of Kendrick’s friends and colleagues. The room
has a cathedral-like domed ceiling and marble columns, and the vibe is
academic. (Previously, Toni Morrison had told me that the Pulitzer
“ought to shape up; their canvas is not wide enough—it’s narrow. So
this means it’s wider.” And Pharrell told me that “this is the
universe winking at us.”) Kendrick is wearing a blue shirt with a shiny
gold pattern, tan pants, and Nike Cortez Kennys. He sits at table number
one with his fiancée, Whitney Alford; Dave Free; Dana Canedy; her son
and two of his friends; Gayle King; and CNN’s Don Lemon. Kendrick is
clearly the star of the show—everyone is trying to take selfies with
him. After the prizes are handed out, he races out with the TDE team,
avoiding reporters but stopping to take photos with kids. Then it’s back
into the van for the trek to Jones Beach, on Long Island, where the
Championship tour will do another show. Backstage, Kendrick works out at
his mobile gym—a pull-up bar and weights (he does between 500 and
1,000 push-ups a day)—and then he and I sit in a small room and talk
about the Pulitzer Prize. “It was one of those things I heard about in
school,” he says, “but I never thought I’d be a part of it. [When I
heard I got it], I thought, to be recognized in an academic world
. . . whoa, this thing really can take me above and beyond. It’s one
of those things that should have happened with hip-hop a long time ago.
It took a long time for people to embrace us—people outside of our
community, our culture—to see this not just as vocal lyrics, but to
see that this is really pain, this is really hurt, this is really true
stories of our lives on wax. And now, for it to get the recognition that
it deserves as a true art form, that’s not only great for myself, but it
makes me feel good about hip-hop in general. Writers like Tupac, Jay Z,
Rakim, Eminem, Q-Tip, Big Daddy Kane, Snoop . . . It lets me know
that people are actually listening further than I expected. When I
looked up at that man on the podium today, I just had countless pictures
in my mind of my mother putting me in suits to go to school. Suit and
tie, from the dollar store, from thrift shops, when I was a kid.” He
recalls his seventh-grade teacher Mr. Inge, who turned him on to poetry:
“It wasn’t a traditional English class,” he says. “It was more of an
artistic exercise. He told us to ‘write something only you can
understand, then pass it on to the next person.’ ” He tells me about
the visit with his parents to the White House (“Obama reached out”).
“My mother wore a black-and-brown dress; she made sure to wear her
best.” And, he tells me, “it [took me back] to talking to my
grandma, when she was alive, and I was always thinking what it would be
like if we had a black president. She had some hope . . .”
Lamar,
photographed in the Bronx. Lamar wears a hoodie by Reigning Champ;
T-shirt by H&M; jewelry by Chrome Hearts; hair products by R+Co;
grooming products by Chanel.Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
And even though Kendrick has had political songs, such as “XXX” and
“Alright”—which became an anthem for Black Lives Matter marches—he
says he doesn’t talk much about politics because “I just get too
frustrated.” I ask him how he feels about Kanye West’s statements about
Trump and about slavery and, after a long pause, he says, “He has his
own perspective, and he’s on this whole agree to disagree thing, and I
would have this conversation with him personally if I want to.” I ask
about his song “LOVE,” on DAMN., and he says, “That’s one of my first
real personal love songs; it’s personal for me, but it’s a universal
feeling when people listen to it.” But as for his own personal love
relationship with Alford, he doesn’t talk about it, he says, because “I
want something that’s just for me.”
Since he says he was confident as a kid, and he’s confident now, why
were there all those self-doubts he’s written about that came in
between? “I never thought about it like that,” he says. “That’s a
question I’m going to ask myself tonight. Maybe it’s that fear . . .
a lot of artists have a fear of success, they can’t handle it; some
people need drugs to escape. For me, I need the microphone—that’s how
I release it. And just figuring out a new life. Maybe thinking that I’m
doing something wrong, or that I’m a little bit different or gifted.
It’s the same thing as not wanting to accept compliments. Just wanting
to work harder.” As for what’s next: “I don’t know,” he says. “And
that’s the most fun part, the most beautiful part.” I ask him if, as he
sings in “ELEMENT,” he would “die for this shit,” and he says,
without a second’s hesitation, “I would.”
This biographical article is part of JAZZ.FM 91’s supplementary research component to expand on The Journey to Jazz and Human Rights documentary podcast series. Click here to find out more.
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on June 17, 1987, in Compton,
Calif. His parents had moved to Compton from Chicago to escape the
city’s gang culture, although Lamar’s father had been associated with
the notorious Gangster Disciples gang. As the 1980s crack trade and West
Coast gang presence increased, Lamar grew up around precarious street
activity, but he seemed more influenced than harmed by it. He was a good
student who enjoyed writing stories and poems, and eventually, lyrics.
Lamar’s family was directly touched by the violence of the streets,
yet he remained thoughtful and observant. He adopted the stage name
“K-Dot” and began performing his lyrics as a rapper. In 2003, at age 16,
he circulated a mixtape called Youngest Head Nigga in Charge,
which drew a lot of interest in his native Southern California and
beyond. In 2010, Lamar switched from “K-Dot” to his own name and dropped
his fourth mixtape, Overly Dedicated. That same year, Lamar released his first full-length independent album under Top Dawg Entertainment.
Lamar continued writing music and lyrics, and he toured and collaborated with more popular recording artists such as Young Jeezy, The Game, Talib Kweli, Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne.
Dr. Dre, one of hip-hop’s most respected and influential producers,
took the young artist under his wing, becoming his mentor in both music
and business. By 2012, Lamar’s highly anticipated major-label debut
album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, was released to wide acclaim. In 2015, Lamar released his next album, To Pimp a Butterfly, featuring artists like Bilal, Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams. The
album was another highly acclaimed outing “known for its funk-laden mix
of bravura, community politics and vulnerability.” Several of the songs
on the record are politically charged, commenting on the social status
of Black Americans today, and keeping in tune with the Black Lives
Matter movement. The album went on to receive a whopping 11 Grammy
nominations. Lamar continues to compose incredible music today, with his
last major album being DAMN. in 2017.
These Walls (2015)
The song These Walls by Kendrick Lamar was the fifth and final single from the album To Pimp A Butterfly. The track was written by Kendrick Lamar, Terrace Martin, Larrance Dopson, James Fauntleroy and Rose McKinney. It won best rap/sung performance at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in 2016. The song itself delves into a variety of issues; These Walls refers
to all the “walls” put up by the artists on the track. In this case,
the “walls” are used as a metaphor to “connect different situations with
emotions such as lust, desire, frustration and anticipation.”
‘If these walls could talk
Sex, she just want to close her eyes and sway If you, if you, if you exercise your right to work it out Its true, its true, its true, shout out to the birthday girls say hey Say hey, everyone deserves a night to play And shes plays only when you tell her no
If these walls could talk I can feel your reign when it cries gold lives inside of you If these walls could talk I love it when I’m in it, I love it when I’m in it’
Ramona Rosales Kendrick Lamar photographed on Dec. 3, 2014 at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, Ca.
"If you're under a certain age, how the f--- you know what jazz is? We all got the same reissues motherf---er."
The liner notes for Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly might, at first glance, seem a little dense. Aside from Dr. Dre, the album’s executive producer, West Coast legend Snoop Dogg, and eternal hitmaker Pharrell Williams, most of the names are question marks for hip-hop fans. For those who follow jazz, however, the liner notes were a revelation -- Grammy Award-winning pianist Robert Glasper, prolific crossover bassist Thundercat, and critically-acclaimed trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire are all international stars within the genre.
Digging
deeper into the credits, the threads that connect the musicians behind
Kendrick’s latest release emerge. Like the rapper, their roots lie in
Compton and South Central L.A., outlining a family tree of L.A.’s mostly
unsung jazz scene, simultaneously revealing how instrumental it’s been
to West Coast hip-hop for decades.
Billboard spoke to four key
players in this fascinating scene, revealing a shared history and mutual
respect that would eventually yield the inescapably brilliant Butterfly.
On how the collaborators on To Pimp A Butterfly met:
Kamasi Washington (played saxophone and arranged and conducted the string section on TPAB): It's all family. Most of the guys that worked on Kendrick's record and on [Flying] Lotus's record [You’re Dead!], we've known each other since before we played music.
My
dad's a saxophone player -- he actually played flute [on the album] --
so that's how I started. My dad and Thundercat’s dad played together,
we've known each other since we were babies. Actually I knew Thundercat
before, when he was just an idea, like, “Let's have another kid” [laughs]. His brother [Ronald Bruner, also on TPAB] and I had been friends since we were two.
L.A.
is like a really big little town, where New York is like a really small
big city. The jazz scene is spread out, so when people come here they
don't really know where it is -- but we all grew up together. We all
played in Multi School Jazz Band in high school, and we all grew up in
Leimert Park, playing at the World Stage and Fifth Street Dick’s. When I
met Terrace [Martin], we were teenagers.
Ambrose Akinmusire (played trumpet on TPAB): I've
been friends with Terrace since I was about 16 years old. I came down
to L.A. because I was thinking of going to CalArts. We had a friend in
common [there]. That's the same time I met Ronald Bruner, and a lot of
the L.A. cats.
Robert Glasper (played piano and keyboard on TPAB):
The way I got involved was in 1996, when I was a junior in high school,
I got elected for this all-star jazz band. Basically they pick 20
students from around the nation, and fly you to Vail [CO] to be in this
high school supergroup. When I was there, I met Terrace Martin because
he was a saxophone player. We were both like 15 years old.
Terrace Martin (produced, and played alto saxophone, horns, Vocoder, and keyboards on TPAB):
I was always playing jazz, because my father's a jazz musician.
Thundercat is my cousin, so we're family -- we started playing music
together all at the same time, as kids in junior high school and high
school.
[After high school] I just still had the desire to produce
records, because my early heroes were producers. I'd been seeing Dr.
Dre since I was 5 years old. My [desire] to be Sonny Stitt and [desire] to be the new Dr. Dre -- they were equal.
At the time I didn't really feel the need to go to New York and play, because I was already playing with [jazz drummer] Billy Higgins in L.A. a lot, touring and everything. I was playing with him, and I was playing with [jazz pianist] Cedar Walton
and different cats, so I mean -- shit, I grew up in New York all my
f-----n life, so I was like, “I don't really want to live in New York,
I'm going to stay in L.A.” I went to CalArts, and I started working with
Snoop. I still played jazz, I just never put out any records.
RG:
[Terrace] moved to L.A., became a hip-hop producer, started producing
for Snoop, becoming the young Dr. Dre. I'd go out there, but I'd be with
Roy Hargrove and Christian McBride,
playing with jazz cats. And then going out there with my own piano trio
-- I'd see him, but he'd be rolling like 20 deep with a hip-hop posse,
with Snoop. I'm like, “What the hell -- our worlds are so different!”
AA: [Terrace]
was doing the stuff for Snoop and everything. When I moved back to
L.A., he was one of the first cats I called, just about collaborating.
KW: Myself,
Terrace, Thundercat -- we all musically grew up playing with Snoop and
the Snoopadelics (his band). I've played on a couple of Snoop's records
-- a lot of my first gigs. My first major gig actually, I think, was
with Snoop.
RG: So [Terrace] is in the hip-hop
world, but he started off in jazz. He has a love for jazz. I started off
in the jazz world, and then I started coming over to the hip-hop world.
I started my hip-hop shit playing with Bilal, in college. Then I became Mos Def's music director in like 2004 or 2005 -- whenever he used a band, he would use my band. I started doing a lot of stuff with Q-Tip, and that's when my hip-hop shit really started popping off.
KW: I met Lotus a long time ago -- we did the John Coltrane competition. He was there with Ravi [Coltrane]
-- he was like a little kid [Flying Lotus, aka Steven Ellison, is
Coltrane’s cousin]. Years later, Thundercat started working with
[Lotus], and reminded me about him. Lotus and I ran into each other
randomly at a jam session -- he sat in, and we connected then. He asked
me if I wanted to do a record with Brainfeeder.
AA:
Those guys that are on the album, they've been playing together -- they
grew up together. I think it's really beautiful that they've sort of
stuck with their crew.
NEXT PAGE: MEETING KENDRICK
ON MEETING KENDRICK
TM:
I met Kendrick when I was fresh out of high school. We all used to work
at this studio in Carson -- the cat that owned the studio also owned
the label, his name was Dude Dawg [Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith].
He's the one that started Top Dawg Entertainment. He set up a place,
just a step away from gangbanging, where all of these badass kids could
do music all together. That's all of us: me, Kendrick, Jay Rock, Sounwave -- that core system right there.
I've
been working with him since day one. Literally, there's not a project
over there that I'm not on, because that's us. From day one, that's just
what it is.
KW: I remember when Terrace told me
about Kendrick, and this was like 2009 or 2008 -- a long time ago. He
was just telling me how dope this dude was. I think that's part of the
reason he's such an amazing artist -- he's been in it for the long haul.
He's new to a lot of people, but he's been in this for a while.
RG: When it was time for me to do my Black Radio
record [Glasper's Grammy-winning 2012 release which featured Lupe
Fiasco, Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), and Erykah Badu], I had already been
collaborating with different MCs. I had peeped Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 -- one of my boys played it for me, and it was so musical and so jazzy. So when it was time for my Black Radio record, I wanted to get Kendrick on it. Terrace made that connection for me.
He'd been telling Kendrick about me, and Kendrick heard some stuff and he liked it. He did a verse for me, for Black Radio.
But he didn't like it, so we couldn't use it. So I have this verse in
my computer that's amazing, but it wasn't up to his standards -- where
he wanted it to be.
He's a perfectionist. I had heard that
already, that he was a super, duper, duper perfectionist. He was like
"Yo, I want to redo my verse," but this was literally when good kid, m.A.A.d city had just come out, so he left on tour. The timing just didn't work in our favor -- I had to put the album out.
NEXT PAGE: RECORDING TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY
RECORDING TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY
TM: [TPAB started] the last week of us doing good kid, m.A.A.d city.
That last week, we already started brainstorming for this album. We
started [recording] this album about six months after he came off the
road from GKMC. We really locked into the album everyday, the
past like... damn near year-and-a-half, every day. Like, I didn't even
take other production work, or other gigs, nothing like that.
[Thundercat]
was very pivotal on this whole project, man. I'm so happy I don't have
to be around that motherf---er anymore. I was with him everyday for a
year and a f---ing half. He says the most crazy things ever -- but on
that instrument you can feel a sincerity, a seriousness through his
music. Thundercat has a special gift in that whatever song he touches --
whatever idea he touches, turns into a song.
If he wasn't there [Dr. Dre’s studio in Santa Monica] playing, we were there eating Wokcano's
together, drinking bourbon, tequila, whatever liquor there we had. This
album is really a blur -- all I can tell you is we were all in the same
room with good energy.
RG:
When I go out to L.A., a lot of times I'll stay a few extra days to
work with Terrace on stuff. I worked with him on his record 3 Chord Fold,
and we just started making beats together and doing things together,
because we're going to eventually form a production company.
TM:
For the past three years, I've been playing heavy with Robert, so I've
been back on my jazz shit. That's where my head was at. Me and Robert
had been playing heavy with Thundercat, so we had kind of already been
on a page. Kendrick took a liking to the page that we had been on, and
was like, “You know what? Let's make that page bigger with my influences
and your influences, and let's do something that we all never did.”
RG: We went into the studio to make some ideas for Kendrick's album -- this is prior to me going to the studio with
Kendrick or anything. This was last year -- I was in L.A., and Terrace
was like, "Let's get a band together and go in the studio, and just try
to come up with some ideas for Kendrick's record." [The riff] was a
little something I came up with in the studio, and we just started
jamming on it. It was just something to have, and in the end it was
like, "Oh, I don't think we're going to use any of it for the songs."
But then they ended up tagging it on the end of "The Blacker The
Berry."
KW: Terrace is the one who brought me in on the Kendrick project. I was working on stuff for one of his albums, Velvet Portraits.
So I played him some of my album that's coming out, and I have a bunch
of strings on my album. [Terrace] was like "Oh, snap" -- I guess a light
went off in his head, because he had been working on Kendrick's record
for a long time at that point.
AA: So Terrace
started working on the Kendrick album, and he kept being like, “Hey,
you've gotta come by the studio and record something.” I was just like,
“Yeah, whatever,” like, it's not really gonna happen. One night, I was
like alright, I'm actually going to go, just to see what's going on over
there. I went over, and the process was amazing.
TM:Dr.Dre
[executive producer of the album] is one of my biggest influences. I've
been following him around literally since the age of five. [On To Pimp A Butterfly]
we would do a lot of records, and he would come in unexpectedly, pop in
at the studio. He’d get everybody on their ps and qs, play a record,
and be like "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that -- you know what? Try adding
this or adding that." Those little elements he would say to change would
make a world of difference. I'm not saying that because that's Dr. Dre,
I'm saying that because, that's a bad motherf---er. That man's ears are
f---ing -- he's just bad, he's just -- he's Dr. Dre. And I'm proud to
say I come from that N.W.A umbrella. Dr. Dre is the hip-hop Quincy.
KW:
I came over, and they basically played the whole record for me, like
three times. This was a few months ago, like end of December/January. It
was trippy because the security was so tight. There was no taking that
music out of the studio, so when he told me [to come in], he said I
would probably have to write there.
They put me in a room, and
Sounwave, Kendrick, and Terrace are just kind of sitting on the couch,
looking at me. It was a little trippy. It was cool that Kendrick -- he's
such a real musician, real artist -- that he was totally into it. It
wasn't like I was just doing something that Terrace told me to do.
Kendrick had his own ideas, and was very much involved in it. I work
with other people, but they aren't necessarily always as involved -- not
even close to that involved.
[Kendrick] was literally sitting,
looking at me write out charts, and kind of interacting with what I was
thinking [as I worked]. I'm trying to explain like, “I'm just playing
these on the piano right now, but this is actually going to be a flute,
and this is actually going to be a trombone, this is going to be a
cello.” He's like, "Ok, ok," and he can hear it. He's a musician.
AA:
Terrace was finishing up “King Kunta.” So they did that, and we were
just talking and chilling, and it just reminded me of the way I like to
record my records. Get the vibe, and just play -- and then you chop it
up. They played like six or seven of the tracks, so I could get a feel
of the album. I recorded on I think like four or five different songs --
they let me do whatever I wanted to do, so I just played. I think they
chopped it up all over the place.
RG: With
this, I was just literally in L.A., and he hit me up like, "Yo, I want
you to come through to the studio, Kendrick's here, we want you to play
on this song." I was in L.A. to record my new record -- the funny thing
is, my whole thing now is getting away from the traditional way of
playing jazz. I've been doing mixtures and, you know, trying to have my
own sound. So it doesn't necessarily sound "swinging."
So I get a
call to go to the studio and do this song with Kendrick. Lo and behold,
it's this song called "For Free?" But it's straight-up jazz! The irony
is, I go from the recording session for my album, where I'm trying not
to swing and play jazz, to the most anticipated hip-hop recording
session and that's the first thing I do; I'm swinging my ass off. I'm
like, dammit, this is crazy.
KW: Kendrick, he
has it in him. On "For Free?", the rhythms he's creating -- when I heard
that, I was like, "Oh, so Kendrick, he's been into jazz for years." I
remember Terrace told me that too, that [Kendrick] had just heard A Love Supreme
for the first time. Like, that's amazing. Just because the rhythms he's
putting in there are just so perfect. I was like, “So what does
Kendrick play, bass? Is he a trumpet player on the side?” I mean he
might be and just doesn't tell anybody.
AA:
That's why I'm so into Kendrick. He really is improvising -- his
phrasing, just the way he feels everything. It's really amazing. I mean
things repeat, but when they do repeat it's different.
RG:
So originally, [“For Free?”] was the song, because it was a jazz tune.
Kendrick was there, and he had never seen me play live. So just when I
was warming up, he was kind of floored, like, “This dude's killing.” And
Terrace is like, "Yeah, motherf---er that's what I've been telling
you." So, Kendrick was like, "Yo, can you play on this song?" and pulled
up another song, and I would listen to it once, and then I would just
play. He was like, "Play whatever you want, play what you feel."
He
did this for nine songs. He was like, "That's crazy -- pull that song
up, and that song up." Literally, for the most part, it was all one
session. I went in there to play one song, and I ended up on -- that
night I played on like nine songs. I think they ended up keeping six or
seven...some of the shit is like interludes, and they didn't really
credit the correct way. That's kind of hip-hop.
KW: That whole interview with Tupac
[“Mortal Man”], first of all, I didn't know what that was going to be
-- I just heard this poem and then I heard Tupac. It was so powerful. It
completely blew my mind. Terrace and I -- we wanted to treat it like a
movie, basically. We put one Coltrane thing on, and Kendrick just got it
immediately. Like "Yeah, that's it, because it's gotta be like fire." That intense, 1960s jazz that people always associate with John Coltrane.
That's what we were trying to get, because it felt like that, it felt
like that time period when he came in, his energy. It just felt like the
height of civil rights.
RG:
I was heading back in L.A. -- going to the Grammys actually. Terrace
hit me up like, "I need you to come out now -- like, tomorrow." He said,
"Kendrick is putting this song on the album that has Tupac and him,
like in an interview situation. I'm writing the music for it right now,
and I want you to play piano on it." So I had to change my ticket, and
get out to L.A. earlier, and that's when I recorded that very last
piece, that suite. I never got to hear it -- I didn't know what it
sounded like until [the day the album dropped]. We just played the
music, played all these different movements, without me hearing the
interview or knowing what it was going to sound like.
KW:
I conducted [the strings] and everything. They're all classical
players, and it was intriguing to them on a musical level. These are
people who play Beethoven and Bach and Prokofiev and Debussy and Ravel
all day long. It just shows that hip-hop, especially where Kendrick is
taking it, is definitely musically -- not just in its popularity, or in
the groove, but just musically -- on a level with anything else, and
everything else. Taking it further, actually, because the rhythms --
what Kendrick is doing on top of it -- is taking it to another level.
NEXT PAGE: ON KENDRICK AND JAZZ
KENDRICK AND JAZZ
TM: John Coltrane, A Love Supreme.
I played that for him for a reason. For one, that's not the record you
introduce someone to [jazz] with. But I did that because he's so
advanced. I told him on a text -- this record we're doing right now [To Pimp A Butterfly], this feels like your fourth or fifth record. It feels like your A Love Supreme.
Like when Coltrane came to grips with the true spirituality part, and
started giving up the horn technicalities and became deeply into the
spiritual aspect, just getting really into improvising. I feel like
Kendrick does this in his music.
He is the John Coltrane of
hip-hop right now. Soft-spoken, extremely humble, and the motherf---er's
always practicing. He's rapping -- while he's making eggs, that
motherf---er's rapping. Like if you ask him what time it is, he's like [puts on nasal voice] "Time, time t-t-t-time." He's always focused, and he's always trying to push the envelope, just like Coltrane.
When Coltrane was able to get Elvin Jones, and Jimmy Garrison and McCoy Tyner
together, I felt Kendrick did the same thing when he said, "You know
what, I'm going to get this super crew together." It's kind of like the Miles Davis concept too, where his whole album is full of leaders. But, leaders that follow him -- [TPAB]
is a fine demonstration of having the biggest ego in the room be the
music. All of us have our own careers, and all of us play our own
instruments, but we came with a common goal: to make sure he was
satisfied and that the music would be there.
RG: He loves the music -- you can tell when you hear Section.80. You can tell when you hear GKMC.
That's the great thing about Kendrick Lamar -- he balances everything
out so well. When you want the gangster, there's the gangster in there.
There's the backpack [rap] sound. There's the jazz sound. No matter what
kind of music you like, you can kind of listen to this record and
there's something about it you'll like. If you like soul, R&B,
hip-hop, east coast hip-hop, there's a bunch of stuff in there. He's
been able to like balance that -- and be on top at the same time. Not be
the artsy guy that everybody kind of likes, but is on the low, like
under-appreciated. He's like, on top.
TM: The
deep shit about this is I've been praying for like 10 years that an
artist [like Kendrick] will really look at cats like me and Robert and
Thundercat, and put our music on a platform that the world can really
embrace. I think it's entirely special that somebody like Kendrick, an
MC, really fell in love with this whole jazz thing and really wants to
help push jazz a bit further, and stay on his square with his hip-hop,
and just do world music like that.
RG:
I applaud him for not giving in and just getting the obvious people
that the industry thinks you should have on your album. Not going out
and being like, you gotta have Nicki Minaj as a guest, you gotta have Rihanna.
Because these people are on top. Kendrick is on top, so he can say who
he thinks should be on top. He can say who's cool, and he chose to say
Bilal. He chose to say Lalah [Hathaway]. He chose to say Rapsody. Thundercat. Myself.
TM:
[Kendrick] just texted me -- his texts are like how he raps. Like,
"Yo." You're like, "Hey, what's up?" He's like, "I wanna hear some more
jazz. Canyougetmesomemorejazzpleaserightnow?"
So I'll send him the links to some more jazz. I just sent him some Miles Davis -- you know, the whole Bitches Brew
shit. Right now I'm giving him a lot of the popular things that he can
pull from, that have a lot of information [about them] online. Once I
get him through that, then my next step is to give him like the esoteric
shit. More different [stuff], like Bill Evans Trio records, Lonnie Smith records, early Herbie [Hancock] shit. We gonna keep digging.
Just like we did with jazz, we did with Sly Stone too, we did with all the gangster shit, we did with Jay Z, we did with Count Basie -- like, we dig.
AA: Terrace
is a real dude though. He's one of the few guys out there who really
knows jazz, and knows hip-hop, and knows the business, and can really
sort of bring in the two worlds together. He's kind of the leader of
that, in my opinion -- just being on the jazz side and having friends in
the hip-hop world. He's one of the few cats that understands how to
communicate with both sides.
It was a big thing that he asked me
to do it. They didn't really need me to do it -- anybody could have
really done that -- but I think he knew that it was important to have me
there, and for it to be a jazz collaboration.
NEXT PAGE: JAZZ AND HIP-HOP
JAZZ AND HIP-HOP
TM: I
think after this album right here, people will be like "It's ok to do
that kind of shit [jazz and hip-hop] on an album.” People used to say
that there's too much music or the sax is too soft or there's too many
chords -- a lot of people used to say that to me. It was hard getting
work for a certain amount of time, for me, because I've always had this
same jazzy musical style. F---ing punks. Now look at them. I told y'all
motherf---ers to let me play the horn.
RG: I
wouldn't say it's a trend, because I don't see many other people doing
it. The band thing was already kind of here, and then left, and now it's
kind of coming back. I think it's something that maybe used to trend,
and is now coming back.
KW: Music is all
connected -- we put different labels on it but hip-hop, in a way,
already is jazz. Like funk is jazz and jazz is funk, jazz is hip-hop.
It's all the same thing. If you really can hear it, it doesn't matter if
you have a message behind it -- you'll understand it.
Especially
American music, especially African-American music -- it's really one
thing. It's just a very wide thing, so we take labels to kind of
compartmentalize it. It's just like back in the day -- all your favorite
Marvin Gaye records and James Brown records, jazz musicians are playing on.
AA: I really do think that jazz and hip-hop are not like each other, they are the
same thing. So, it's kind of an oxymoron to me when you say
jazz/hip-hop collaboration. If you really look at [jazz in] the '70s,
with the electronics and stuff like that, I think hip-hop picked up
right where that left off. I think that's the natural progression of
jazz, and I think this album proves that.
TM: To me, if you're doing that, you are definitely up under the [A] Tribe Called Quest
umbrella. That's a big influence to us too. We just wanted to pay
homage, and just put another pump in that so the new kids can have
something to reference. The mentality in jazz is each one teach one, so
we want to bring that into hip-hop, and into all other forms of music.
The easiest way to do that is through music.
I fell in love with the saxophone by listening to A Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Marauders and The Low End Theory.
I think that is the importance of hip-hop and jazz -- they're both
closely related, and once you hear jazz, you always want to look
something up, like "Let me look up who played this song," or "Let me
look up more jazz." I think it helps people really want to dig in and
learn more about what they're listening to.
Jazz people can be
pretty close-minded. Like when Robert [Glasper] first came out, a lot of
the other jazz cats were like "Oh, that's not jazz." I'm like, if
you're under a certain age, how the f--- you know what jazz is? We all
got the same reissues motherf---er. Stupid ass. If you under 50, we all
got the same motherf---in reissues, and you ain't seen Charlie Parker play, punk, so it don't matter.
KW:
Even a lot of people who are fans of music might not be familiar with
jazz. [The thing is] they are actually, and just don't realize that
like, the elements of Robert Glasper [for example] are in J Dilla,
and A Tribe Called Quest. They're in there, and you like that -- so
many of the samples you hear, and so many of the things that people
gravitate towards, are jazz. You just didn't know it was jazz because it
was called something else.
Before parsing the script on Kendrick Lamar's latest record—released by surprise last night—you have to dig into the score. To Pimp A Butterfly is
the major-label actualization of a jazz scene that's been fostering in
Los Angeles for years, with young inspired composers reimagining Miles,
Coltrane, and Sun Ra in a post-rap world. Lamar tapped a spread of
keyboardists, arrangers, and specialists to give the album a sense of
living, breathing momentum, with songs pivoting mid-movement and ebbing
in and out of interludes. While names like Boi-1da and Pharrell barely
squeeze in a credit, these are the players that have shaped the record's
forward-leaning sound.
Matthew Eisman/Getty Images
Thundercat"Heartbreaks + Setbacks"
If there's anyone making L.A.'s prog-R&B beat scene palatable
to the kids at the cool table, it's Thundercat. Since his Brainfeeder
debut in 2011, the guitarist/vocalist has paired heart-racing baselines
and falsettos with eye-popping outfits and surrealist visuals.
Thundercat
A prodigal alto saxophonist with an ear for rap, Terrace Martin was tapped to round out TPAB's
softer edges. His fluttering horn is omnipresent throughout the record,
but Martin's optimistic resolve is most needed on "The Blacker The
Berry": under his guidance, hellfire flames break open into warm
sunlight for the last 60 seconds.
Terrace Martin
Kendrick Lamar"Hol' Up"
It's impossible to divorce Kendrick Lamar from Sounwave: the
Compton producer has built K.Dot's calling-card singles since his
mixtape days. "Hol' Up," "A.D.H.D," "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe," the list
goes on, and his fingerprint is heavy throughout TPAB. He
added production to almost half the tracklist, and "King Kunta" lives up
to previous work, reaching back to rap's cultural rough drafts found in
old James Brown flows.
Sounwave
Jesse Grant/Getty Images
It could be argued that Robert Glasper's quietly heralded Black Radio laid the framework for an album like TPAB:
the pianist's fearless fusion of jazz, R&B and hip-hop gave the
Soulquarian age sorely-needed contemporary context. Three years later,
Kendrick's record is drenched in Glasper's keys, and its formless
structure forces listeners to follow as closely as Glasper always
demands.
Robert Glasper
Kamasi Washington"Re Run Home"
Inglewood native Kamasi Washington just announced a new album, The Epic,
starring the tumbling free jazz single "Re Home Run." The 34 year old
composer/bandleader handled string arrangements throughout TPAB, and trades abstract horn runs with Terrace Martin on "u", the album's screech-to-a-halt centerpiece.
Kamasi Washington
Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Founder at CEO of the 1500 or Nothin' band, drummer/producer
Larrance "Rance" Dopson has probably performed right in front of you at
your favorite rap show. He and his crew of L.A. instrumentalists and
arrangers have produced, written and played for Jay Z, Justin
Timberlake, Teddy Riley, Lupe Fiasco and more. His percussion provides
the backbone for much of TPAB, working closely with Terrace Martin on hard-thudded two steppers like "Complexion" and "These Walls."
While Lamar has always steered clear of the hip-hop gossip ring, he’d clearly been paying attention to the culture at large. DAMN. is both a reaction to the mainstream media’s perception of both Kendrick and hip-hop, and an interrogation of the self.
Kendrick Lamar has always told stories through his music, creating a bridge between spoken-word and visual narratives. With DAMN., however, the rapper challenged his audiences to glean understanding through disciplined listening.
Released on 14 April 2017, DAMN. emerged from a tense
political climate in which simmering tension gave way to a cathartic and
masterful release. Throughout the album, Lamar instils the need for
restraint, self-reflection and the preservation of ideals that enable
people to fight for themselves during crushing times.
DAMN. was never intended to be overtly political, but more
of a continuation of Lamar’s growth and response to the world around
him. He brings his sharp-edged narrative skills to the album, employing a
different method of storytelling in which the listener is encouraged to
engage with the tracks repeatedly in order to uncover the balance and
execution behind each verse.
A very economical album, DAMN. finds Lamar succinctly
balancing his novel wordplay, embedding every verse with a clear intent.
There’s no spoon-feeding here, either, as K-Dot consistently delivers
skilful, categorically “conscious hip-hop” that is worthy of careful dissection.
When Lamar released To Pimp A Butterfly
in 2015, the themes of police brutality, racial inequality and
political outrage were evident; he addressed trauma within the black
community, financial turmoil and gun violence from a poetic approach.
Two years later, Lamar unpacked these issues with the same maturity but a
deeper scope, intertwining themes of religion to question one’s life
path. Instead of being a call to action, DAMN. posits introspection and assessment of what one can take and use from the world.
Advancing the narrative
The album opens with a choir on ‘BLOOD.’, with Kendrick employing his
cutting narrative flow, telling the story of an old blind woman who
shoots him when he attempts to help her.
From here, DAMN. jumps and runs into ‘DNA.’, a booming track
that takes to task America’s oppressive views on people of colour while
reasserting Lamar’s own black pride. “This is why I say that hip-hop
has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent
years,” Geraldo Rivera spews on a Fox News segment, while Lamar fires
back: “I know murder, conviction/Burners, boosters, burglars, ballers,
dead, redemption/Scholars, fathers dead with kids and/I wish I was fed
forgiveness.”
The album continues with Kendrick bobbing and weaving on tracks
like ‘ELEMENT.’, an unforgiving battle-rap on which he insists he’s
willing to “die for this s__t” over a James Blake-provided piano loop.
“Last LP I tried to lift the black artists,” he raps, referencing To Pimp A Butterfly, adding, “But it’s a difference ’tween black artists and wack artists.”
His confidence is a siren for black people growing up
disproportionately affected by police brutality and brazen racism. The
brevity of the track is punctuated with the refrain “If I gotta slap a
pu__y ass ni__a, I’ma make it look sexy”, while Lamar at one point lifts
his flow from Juvenile’s 1998 single ‘Ha’, before the track slows down
and eases into ‘FEEL.’.
Biblical allusions
Many of the tracks on DAMN. allude to the seven deadly sins.
While each individual song stands on its own, they come together to
create a scripture-inspired collection that fits tightly together. This
philosophical concept gives way on ‘LOYALTY.’, one of the few
radio-ready tracks on the album, featuring Rihanna. DAMN.
is noticeably light on guest features, but Rihanna’s appearance (with a
rare instance of her rapping) adds extra star power to the album.
Though ‘LOYALTY.’ refers to romantic relationships, Lamar is fixated on
notions of loyalty and honesty throughout his work.
‘HUMBLE.’, the album’s lead single, peaked at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and serves to bind DAMN.
together. The standout track sees Kendrick with one foot in the past
and the other in the present, serving as a reminder of what life used to
be like before he was catapulted into superstardom. The throbbing beat
by Mike WiLL Made-It was originally reserved for Gucci Mane after he got
out of prison, which explains the urgency of the production.
Returning to the album’s religious undercurrents, ‘FEAR.’ speaks of
suffering and talking to God while recalling intensely traumatic
experiences. The track ends with a voicemail from Kendrick’s cousin, who
quotes The Book Of Deuteronomy and warns Lamar about God’s vengeful
tendencies. On ‘GOD.’, you can sense a looming finality, as Kendrick
wrestles between flaunting his achievements while staying humble,
reminding himself that he’s just a fallible human.
Just as DAMN. begins with a chorus of voices on
‘BLOOD.’, so it ends with ‘DUCKWORTH.’, the track that underlines the
cyclical nature of the album. A reference to his legal surname,
‘DUCKWORTH.’ imagines an alternate reality in which Kendrick never
existed in the first place, telling the story of how Anthony “Top Dawg”
Tiffith could’ve killed Kendrick’s father in a robbery long before the
two ever met and came to work together. It’s a startling reminder that
one decision can affect the entire trajectory of one life and the lives
of those around it.
A “distinguished musical composition”
Kendrick Lamar has chosen to live as an artist focused on
self-examination, tying up the loose ends of his life within his work,
and DAMN. shows him in his prime, learning from himself and
growing as a black man navigating the world and pushing against it when
he needs to.
Even as it trolled the hip-hop mainstream, DAMN. was a critical and commercial smash. The album debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100, was certified triple-platinum and scooped up the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2018. DAMN.
also made history as the first non-classical and non-jazz album to be
awarded a Pulitzer Prize. The committee praised its “distinguished
musical composition”, calling the album “a virtuosic song collection
unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers
affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American
life”.
While Lamar has always steered clear of the hip-hop gossip ring, he’d clearly been paying attention to the culture at large. DAMN. is both a reaction to the mainstream media’s perception of both Kendrick and hip-hop, and an interrogation of the self.
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Since his mainstream debut in 2012 with Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City,
Lamar has been regarded as one of the most influential artists of his
generation, as well as one of the greatest rappers and lyricists of all
time.[1][2][3] Aside from his solo career, he is also known as a member of the hip hop supergroup Black Hippy alongside his Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) label-mates Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and Schoolboy Q.
Raised in Compton, California, Lamar embarked on his musical career as a teenager under the stage name K-Dot,
releasing a mixtape that garnered local attention and led to his
signing with indie record label Top Dawg Entertainment. He began to gain
recognition in 2010 after his first retail release, Overly Dedicated. The following year, he independently released his first studio album, Section.80, which included his debut single "HiiiPoWeR". By that time, he had amassed a large online following and collaborated with several prominent hip hop artists.
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born in Compton, California, on June 17, 1987,[8][9] the son of a couple from Chicago.[10]
Although not in a gang himself, he grew up around gang members, with
his closest friends being Westside Piru Bloods and his father, Kenny
Duckworth, being a Gangster Disciple.[11][12] His first name was given to him by his mother in honor of American singer-songwriter Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations.[13] He grew up on welfare and in Section 8 housing. In 1995, at the age of eight, Lamar witnessed his idols Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre filming the music video for their hit single "California Love", which proved to be a significant moment in his life.[14] As a child, Lamar attended McNair Elementary and Vanguard Learning Center in the Compton Unified School District. He has admitted to being quiet and shy in school, his mother even confirming he was a "loner" until the age of seven.[15][11] As a teenager, he attended Centennial High School in Compton, where he was a straight-A student.[10][16][17]
Career
2004–2009: Career beginnings
In 2004, at the age of 16, Lamar released his first full-length project, a mixtape titled Youngest Head Nigga in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year), under the pseudonym K-Dot.[18] The mixtape was released under Konkrete Jungle Muzik and garnered local recognition for Lamar.[19] The mixtape led to Lamar securing a recording contract with Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), a newly founded indie record label, based in Carson, California.[18] He began recording material with the label and subsequently released a 26-track mixtape two years later, titled Training Day (2005).[20]
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Lamar would appear alongside other up-and-coming West Coast rappers, such as Jay Rock and Ya Boy, as opening acts for veteran West Coast rapper The Game. Under the moniker K-Dot, Lamar was also featured on The Game's songs "The Cypha" and "Cali Niggaz".[21][22]
In 2008, Lamar was prominently featured throughout the music video for Jay Rock's commercial debut single, "All My Life (In the Ghetto)", which features American hip hop superstar Lil Wayne and was backed by Warner Bros. Records. Lamar garnered further recognition after a video of a live performance of a Charles Hamilton show surfaced, in which Hamilton battled fellow rappers who were in the audience. Lamar began rapping a verse over the instrumental to Miilkbone's "Keep It Real", which would later appear on a track titled "West Coast Wu-Tang".[14]
After receiving a co-sign from Lil Wayne,[23][24] Lamar released his third mixtape in 2009, titled C4, which was heavily themed around Wayne's album Tha Carter III.[25] Soon after, Lamar decided to drop K-Dot as his stage name and go by Kendrick Lamar. He subsequently released a self-titled extended play in late 2009.[26] That same year, Lamar along with his TDE label-mates: Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q formed Black Hippy, a hip hop supergroup.[27]
2010–2011: Overly Dedicated and Section.80
Throughout 2010, Lamar toured with Tech N9ne and Jay Rock on The Independent Grind tour.[18] On September 14, 2010, he released the visuals for "P&P 1.5", a song taken from his mixtape, Overly Dedicated, featuring his Black Hippy cohort Ab-Soul.[28] On the same date, Lamar released Overly Dedicated to digital retailers under Top Dawg Entertainment, and later on September 23, released it for free online.[29][30] The project fared well enough to enter the United States BillboardTop R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, where it peaked at number 72.[31]
Lamar performing in Toronto in 2011
The mixtape includes a song titled "Ignorance Is Bliss", in which Lamar highlights gangsta rap and street crime, but ends each verse with "ignorance is bliss", giving the message "we know not what we do;"[32][33] it was this song specifically that made hip hop producer Dr. Dre want to work with Lamar after seeing the music video on YouTube.[34] This led to Lamar working with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on Dre's often-delayed Detox album, as well as speculation of Lamar signing to Dr. Dre's record label, Aftermath Entertainment.[18][35][36] In December 2010, Complex magazine spotlighted Lamar in an edition of their "Indie Intro" series.[37]
In early 2011, Lamar was included in XXL's annual Top 10 Freshman Class, and was featured on the cover alongside fellow up-and-coming rappers Cyhi the Prynce, Meek Mill, Fred the Godson, Mac Miller, Yelawolf and Big K.R.I.T., and Diggy Simmons.[38] On April 11, 2011, Lamar announced the title of his next full-length project to be Section.80,[39] and the following day the first single "HiiiPoWeR" was released, the concept of which was to further explain the HiiiPoWeR movement.[40] The song was produced by fellow American rapper J. Cole, marking their first of several collaborations.[40]
On the topic of whether his next project would be an album
or a mixtape, Lamar answered: "I treat every project like it's an album
anyway. It's not going to be nothing leftover. I never do nothing like
that. These are my leftover songs you all can have them. I'm going to
put my best out. My best effort. I'm trying to look for an album in
2012."[41] In June 2011, Lamar released "Ronald Reagan Era (His Evils)", a cut from Section.80, featuring Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA.[42] On July 2, 2011, Lamar released Section.80, his first independent album, to critical acclaim. The album features guest appearances from GLC, Colin Munroe, Schoolboy Q, and Ab-Soul, while the production was handled by Top Dawg in-house production team Digi+Phonics as well as Wyldfyer, Terrace Martin and J. Cole. Section.80
went on to sell 5,300 digital copies in its first week, without any
television or radio coverage, and received mostly positive reviews.[43]
In August 2011, while performing at a West Los Angeles concert, Lamar was dubbed the "New King of the West Coast" by Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Game.[44][45] On August 24, 2011, Lamar released the music video for the Section.80 track, "ADHD". The video was directed by Vashtie Kola
who had this to say of the video: "Inspired by "A.D.H.D"'s dark beat
and melancholy lyrics which explore a generation in conflict, we find
Kendrick Lamar in a video that illustrates the songs[sic] universal and
age-old theme of apathetic youth. (...) Shot in New York City during the
sweltering July Summer heat".[46] In October 2011, Lamar appeared alongside fellow American rappers B.o.B, Tech N9ne, MGK, and Big K.R.I.T., in a cypher at the BET Hip Hop Awards.[47] Also in October, Lamar partnered with Windows Phone, and crafted an original song with producer Nosaj Thing entitled "Cloud 10", to promote Microsoft's new product.[48] During 2011, Lamar appeared on several high-profile albums including Game's The R.E.D. Album, Tech N9ne's All 6's and 7's, 9th Wonder's The Wonder Years and Canadian recording artist Drake's Grammy Award-winning Take Care, which featured Lamar on a solo track.[49]
2012–2013: Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and controversies
Lamar performing in 2012
On February 15, 2012, a song by Lamar titled "Cartoon and Cereal", featuring fellow American rapper Gunplay, was leaked online.[50] Lamar later revealed that the track was for his major-label debut studio album and that he had plans to shoot a video for it.[51] Although the song would later be ranked No. 2 in Complex's Best 50 Songs of 2012 list, it would ultimately fail to appear on Lamar's debut.[52] In February 2012, it was announced that Fader had enlisted both Kendrick Lamar and Detroit-based rapper Danny Brown, to appear on the cover of the magazine's Spring Style issue.[53] In February, Lamar also embarked on Drake's Club Paradise Tour, opening along with fellow American rappers, ASAP Rocky and 2 Chainz.[54]
In March 2012, MTV announced that Lamar had signed a deal with Interscope Records and Aftermath Entertainment, marking the end of his career as an independent artist. Under the new deal, Lamar's projects, including his album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, would be jointly released via Top Dawg, Aftermath, and Interscope.[55] Also in March, Lamar appeared on Last Call with Carson Daly, where he spoke on Dr. Dre and his hometown of Compton, California.[56] On April 2, 2012, Lamar premiered his commercial debut single "The Recipe", on Big Boy's Neighborhood at Power 106. The song, which serves as the first single from Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, was released for digital download the following day. The song was produced by West Coast producer Scoop DeVille and features vocals from his mentor Dr. Dre, who also mixed the record.[citation needed]
On May 14, 2012, J. Cole again spoke on his collaborative effort
with Lamar. In an interview with Bootleg Kev, Cole stated: "I just
started working with Kendrick the other day. We got it in, finally,
again. We got maybe four or five [songs] together."[57] On May 21, Lamar made his 106 & Park debut alongside Ace Hood, joining Birdman and Mack Maine
on stage to perform "B Boyz". Lamar also talked about his style and
sound, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, and his upcoming collaborative LP with J.
Cole.[58] On the same date, Lamar released "War Is My Love", an original song written and recorded for the video game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, for which he appeared in a mini promotional clip earlier that month.[59]
On July 31, 2012, Top Dawg, Aftermath, and Interscope serviced "Swimming Pools (Drank)" as the lead single from Lamar's debut album. The song's music video, directed by Jerome D, premiered on August 3, 2012, on 106 & Park. The song peaked at number 17 on the BillboardHot 100 in its thirteenth week of gradually climbing up the chart. On August 15, 2012, singer Lady Gaga announced via Twitter that both had recorded a song titled "PartyNauseous" for his debut album.[60]
However, Gaga withdrew from participation in the last moment, citing
that it was due to artistic differences and had nothing to do with
Lamar.[61] On August 17, 2012, Lamar released a song titled "Westside, Right on Time", featuring Southern rapperYoung Jeezy.[62]
The song was released as part of the "Top Dawg Entertainment Fam
Appreciation Week". During 2012, Lamar also toured with the rest of
Black Hippy and MMG rapper, Stalley, on BET's Music Matters Tour.[63]
Lamar's major-label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city,
was released on October 22, 2012. The album was met with critical
acclaim and debuted at number two in the US, selling 242,100 copies in
its first week.[64] Later that year, Fuse TV listed Lamar's single, "Backseat Freestyle" among the top 40 songs of 2012.[65] In a few months' time, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). HipHopDX named Lamar "Emcee of the Year" for their 2012 Year-End honors.[66]
In November, after Cole posted pictures of himself and Lamar working in
the studio, the latter revealed that the two are still working on a
project, but an exact release date was not given for the joint album:
"We are going to drop that out the sky though. I don't want to give
dates. I'm just going to let it fall" in an interview with the LA
Leakers.[67]
Lamar performing in 2013
On January 26, 2013, Lamar performed the album's first singles "Swimming Pools (Drank)" and "Poetic Justice" on NBC's sketch comedy and variety show, Saturday Night Live. In the same episode, Lamar also appeared alongside guest host Adam Levine and comedy band The Lonely Island, in an SNL Digital Short, which spawned the single "YOLO".[68][69][70] On February 22, 2013, Lamar released the video for "Poetic Justice", the Janet Jackson-sampling collaboration with Canadian rapper Drake.[71] On February 26, Lamar performed "Poetic Justice" on the Late Show with David Letterman.[72] Just nine months after its release, good kid, m.A.A.d city was certified platinum by the RIAA, Lamar's first platinum certification.[73]
In August 2013, Lamar's verse on the Big Sean track "Control",
made waves across the hip-hop industry. In the verse, Lamar vows to
lyrically "murder" every other up-and-coming rapper, namely J. Cole, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T, Meek Mill, ASAP Rocky, Drake, Big Sean, Jay Electronica, Tyler, The Creator and Mac Miller.
During the song, Lamar also calls himself the "King of New York", which
caused controversy among several New York-based rappers.[74] Many New York rappers, including Papoose, The Mad Rapper, Mickey Factz, JR Writer, Mysonne, Joell Ortiz and more, took offense to this. Furthermore, fellow American rappers such as Meek Mill, Lupe Fiasco, Cassidy, Joe Budden, King L, Bizarre and B.o.B, among many others, released a response or diss track, within a week.[75] In the days following the track's release, Lamar's Twitter account saw a 510% increase in followers.[76]
On September 6, 2013, American recording artist and record producer Kanye West announced he would be headlining his first solo tour in five years, in support of his sixth album Yeezus (2013), with Kendrick Lamar accompanying him on tour. The Yeezus Tour began in October.[77][78] In October, it was also revealed that Lamar would be featured on Eminem's eighth studio album The Marshall Mathers LP 2.[79] On October 15, 2013, Lamar won five awards at the BET Hip Hop Awards, including Album of the Year and Lyricist of the Year (the latter of which he had also won the year before).[80] At the award show, Lamar performed "Money Trees", and was also featured in a cypher alongside his Top Dawg label-mates Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, Isaiah Rashad, and Ab-Soul.[81][82] During an October 2013 interview with XXL, Lamar revealed that following The Yeezus Tour, he would begin to start working on his next album.[83]
In November 2013, he was named GQ's "Rapper of the Year," and was featured on the cover of the magazine's "Men of the Year" issue.[84][85][86] During the interview, he stated that he would begin recording his second major-label studio album in January 2014.[87] Following the issue's release, TDE's CEO Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith pulled Kendrick Lamar from performing at GQ's
party that accompanies the issue, calling out writer Steve Marsh's
profile, "Kendrick Lamar: Rapper of the Year," for its "racial
overtones."[88][89][90][91]GQ
editor-in-chief Jim Nelson responded with the following statement:
"Kendrick Lamar is one of the most talented new musicians to arrive on
the scene in years. That's the reason we chose to celebrate him, wrote
an incredibly positive article declaring him the next King of Rap, and
gave him our highest honor: putting him on the cover of our Men of the
Year issue. I'm not sure how you can spin that into a bad thing, and I
encourage anyone interested to read the story and see for themselves."[92][93]
2014–2016: To Pimp a Butterfly and Untitled Unmastered
Lamar at the HollywoodPalladium during a pre Grammy
concert in 2015
In an interview with Billboard in February 2014, Lamar stated he was planning to put out a new album the next September.[100] During the same interview, which also included Schoolboy Q, Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, and Dave Free, the possibility of a debut effort from the Black Hippy collective appearing in 2014 was announced.[100] On July 31, 2014, it was announced that Lamar would premiere his short film m.A.A.d at Sundance's inaugural NEXT Fest in Los Angeles on August 9.[101] The film is inspired by good kid, m.A.A.d city, and was directed by Kahlil Joseph, who had previously worked with Lamar on the Yeezus Tour.[101] Lamar featured on the Alicia Keys song "It's On Again", which was written for the film The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).[102]
On September 23, 2014, Lamar released "i" as the first single from his third album.[103] On November 15, 2014, Lamar once again appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest, where he performed "i" and "Pay for It", appearing alongside Jay Rock.[104] Through his appearance, with blackout contacts and his braids partly out, Lamar paid homage to New York-based rapper Method Man, whose debut album Tical celebrated its 20th anniversary that day.[105][106] On December 17, 2014, Lamar debuted a new untitled song on one of the final episodes of The Colbert Report.[107][108] In early 2015, Lamar won Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for his song "i" at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.[109] On February 9, 2015, he released his third album's second single, titled "The Blacker the Berry".[110] Originally expected to be released on March 23, 2015, his new album To Pimp a Butterfly was released a week early on March 16, 2015 to rave reviews.[111] The album debuted atop the US Billboard 200 chart selling 324,000 copies in its first week,[112] and established Spotify's global first-day streaming record (9.6 million).[113] Lamar was later featured on the cover of Rolling Stone, with editor Josh Eells writing he's "arguably the most talented rapper of his generation."[11][114]
Billboard
critics commented at the end of the year, "twenty years ago, a
conscious rap record wouldn't have penetrated the mainstream in the way
Kendrick Lamar did with To Pimp A Butterfly. His sense of timing
is impeccable. In the midst of rampant cases of police brutality and
racial tension across America, he spews raw, aggressive bars while
possibly cutting a rug,"[123] while Pitchfork editors noted it "forced critics to think deeply about music. It's an album by the greatest rapper of his generation."[124] Producer Tony Visconti stated David Bowie's album Blackstar
(2016) was influenced by Lamar's work, "we were listening to a lot of
Kendrick Lamar [...] we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and
he didn't do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there,
and that's exactly what we wanted to do."[125] Visconti also stated this about Lamar while talking about "rule-breakers" in music.
"His album To Pimp A Butterfly
broke every rule in the book and he had a number one album glued to the
top of the charts. You'd think certain labels would learn form that.
But they take somebody who is out there and say, 'That's what people
want.' No, people want that for one week. You don't want the same song
every single day of your life."[126]
Lamar won five Grammys at the 58th ceremony, including Best Rap Album for To Pimp a Butterfly.[127] Other nominations included Album of the Year and Song of the Year.[128] At the ceremony, Lamar performed a medley of "The Blacker the Berry" and "Alright".[129] It was ranked by Rolling Stone and Billboard as the best moment of the night,[130][131] with the latter writing "It was easily one of the best live TV performances in history."[129]
On March 4, 2016, Lamar released a compilation album Untitled Unmastered,[132] containing eight untitled tracks, each dated.[133] Lamar later confirmed that the tracks were unfinished demos from the recording of To Pimp a Butterfly.[134] The compilation album debuted atop the US Billboard 200.[135]
On March 23, 2017, Lamar released a promotional single "The Heart Part 4".[136] A week later, Lamar released the lead single, titled "Humble", accompanied by its music video.[137] On April 7, 2017, his fourth studio album was made available for pre-order and confirmed to be released on April 14, 2017.[138][139] On April 11, Lamar announced the album title, Damn (stylized as DAMN.), as well as the track list, which confirmed guest appearances by Rihanna, Zacari, and U2.[140] The album was released on April 14, 2017 to rave reviews, with a Rolling Stone writer describing it as a combination of "the old school and the next-level."[141] It marked his third number one album on the Billboard 200 chart, and the single "Humble" became his first number one as a lead artist on the Billboard Hot 100.[142] On May 4, 2017, Damn was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[143] Lamar later released the DAMN. Collectors Edition in mid-December 2017, with the tracklist from the original album in reverse order.[144]
In January 2018, Lamar's song publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music began to expire. Top Dawg Entertainment, which represents Lamar, is seeking $20 to $40 million for the rapper's catalogue.[153] Lamar opened the 60th Annual Grammy Awards with a medley of "XXX", "LUST", "DNA", "HUMBLE", "King's Dead" and Rich the Kid's "New Freezer".[154] He was also nominated for seven awards, including Album of the Year and Best Rap Album for DAMN., and the Record of the Year, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best Music Video for "HUMBLE", and Best Rap/Sung Performance for "LOYALTY"
with Rihanna. Lamar ultimately won five awards at the ceremony, for
Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, Best Music Video,
and Best Rap/Sung Performance.[155]
In July 2018, Lamar made his acting debut in the fifth season of the Starz drama series Power, portraying a Dominican drug addict named Laces.[156] Lamar's casting stemmed from his friendship with rapper 50 Cent, who also executive produces and stars in the series. Series creator Courtney A. Kemp said that Lamar told 50 Cent that he wanted to be on the show and 50 Cent organized the appearance.[157]
Lamar wanted to portray a character that did not resemble his musical
persona, and drew inspiration from various people he knew when growing
up in Compton. He also compared his acting preparation to his
songwriting, saying that he prefers to "always have that open space to
evolve".[158] Lamar's performance was praised by critics and viewers.[159][160][161][162]
Artistry
Influences
Kendrick Lamar has stated that Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Jay Z, Nas, and Eminem
are his top five favorite rappers. Tupac Shakur is his biggest
influence, and has influenced his music as well as his day-to-day
lifestyle.[18][163][164] In a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone, Lamar mentioned Mos Def and Snoop Dogg as rappers that he listened to and took influence from during his early years.[165] He also cites rapper DMX as an influence: "[DMX] really [got me started] on music," explained Lamar in an interview with Philadelphia's Power 99. "That first album [It's Dark and Hell Is Hot] is classic, [so he had an influence on me]." He has also stated Eazy-E as an influence in a post by Complex saying: "I Wouldn't Be Here Today If It Wasn't for Eazy-E."[166]
In a September 2012 interview, Lamar stated rapper Eminem
"influenced a lot of my style" and has since credited Eminem for his own
aggression, on records such as "Backseat Freestyle".[167][168] Lamar also gave Lil Wayne's work in Hot Boys credit for influencing his style and praised his longevity.[169] He has said that he also grew up listening to Rakim, Dr. Dre, and Tha Dogg Pound.[170]
In January 2013, when asked to name three rappers that have played a
role in his style, Lamar said: "It's probably more of a west coast
influence. A little bit of Kurupt, [Tupac], with some of the content of Ice Cube."[171] In a November 2013 interview with GQ, when asked "The Four MC's That Made Kendrick Lamar?", he answered Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Mobb Deep, namely Prodigy.[172] Lamar professed to having been influenced by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Parliament-Funkadelic during the recording of To Pimp a Butterfly.[173]
Musical style
Lamar has been branded as the "new king of hip hop" numerous times.[174][175][176]Forbes
said, on Lamar's placement as hip hop's "king", "Kendrick Lamar may or
may not be the greatest rapper alive right now. He is certainly in the
very short lists of artists in the conversation."[177] Lamar frequently refers to himself as the "greatest rapper alive"[178] and once called himself "The King of New York."[179]
Called a "radio-friendly but overtly political rapper" by Pitchfork,[186] Lamar has been a branded "master of storytelling"[187] and his lyrics have been described as "katana-blade sharp" and his flow limber and dexterous.[188] Lamar's writing usually includes references to racism, black empowerment[189] and social injustice,[190] being compared to a State of Union address by The Guardian. His writing has also been called "confessional"[191] and controversial.[174]The New York Times has called Lamar's musical style anti-flamboyant, interior and complex and labelled him as a technical rapper.[192]Billboard described his lyricism as "Shakespearean".[193]
Controversies
Lyrics
Lamar's 2015 song "The Blacker the Berry" gathered controversy following the lines, "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin
was in the street, when gang-banging make me kill a nigga blacker than
me? Hypocrite!" Some fans perceived the line to be Lamar judging the
black community.[194]
Lamar later spoke on the lyrics in a NPR interview, saying, "It's not
me pointing at my community; it's me pointing at myself, I don't talk
about these things if I haven't lived them, and I've hurt people in my
life. It's something I still have to think about when I sleep at night."[195]
Following the release of Lamar's 2017 song "Humble", he faced backlash for the lines, "I'm so fucking sick and tired of the Photoshop / Show me something natural like afro on Richard Pryor
/ Show me something natural like ass with some stretch marks." He was
accused of putting down sections of women who enjoy makeup in an attempt
to be uplifting.[196] Female labelmate SZA later defended Lamar.[197] The model who appeared in the music video for "Humble" was also attacked on social media due to her role in the video.[198]
Feuds
In August 2013, Lamar was featured on the song "Control" by Big Sean.
In his verse, Lamar called out several rappers, telling them he was
going to murder his competition. The verse gathered responses and diss
tracks from artists such as Joe Budden, Papoose, Meek Mill, Diddy, Lupe Fiasco, and B.o.B.[199]Rolling Stone called the single "one of the most important hip-hop songs of the last decade".[200]
Lamar has been reported to be in a feud with Drake. Complex called their relationship "complicated",[201]Genius called it a "subliminal war",[202] and GQ called it a "cold war" due to the mass popularity of both artists.[203][204]
Before Lamar's "Control" verse, Lamar had been featured on Drake's
"Buried Alive Interlude", Drake was featured on Lamar's single "Poetic Justice", and both were featured on A$AP Rocky's song "Fuckin' Problems".[201] Drake responded to Lamar's "Control" verse in an interview with Billboard, saying, "I know good and well that Kendrick's not murdering me, at all, in any platform."[205]
In September 2013, Drake's third album, Nothing was the Same, was released.[206] Publications such as Complex speculated that Drake had directed subliminal insults at Lamar in the song "The Language".[207] In an interview with Pitchfork a day later, Drake showed disapproval of "Control", saying he wasn't impressed with it and added, "Mind you, it'll go on– Complex
and Rap Radar will give it like, verse of the millennium and all that
shit or whatever." Drake later said his only competition was Kanye West, after being asked about Kendrick saying he was murdering his competition.[208] Lamar further escalated tensions in the 2013 BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher when he referred to Drake during the cypher,[209]
saying, "Yeah, and nothing's been the same since they dropped 'Control'
/ And tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes."[210]Stereogum noted that Lamar was referencing Drake's third studio album, Nothing was the Same, and also Drake being called overly sensitive by the media.[211]
In December 2013, Drake, whilst being interviewed by Vice,
said he "stood his ground" and he has to realize "I'm being baited and
I'm not gonna fall", then refusing to deny that the line on "The
Language" was directed to Lamar, saying he "doesn't want to get into
responses". Drake later went on to say that he acknowledged the lines in
Lamar's cypher were for him and that it wasn't enough for him to
prepare a response before saying they haven't seen each other since the
BET cypher.[212]
Several more reported subliminal lines were spoken by each rapper, four
by Kendrick on the songs, "Pay for it", "King Kunta", "Darkside/Gone",
and "Deep Water" and two by Drake on the songs "Used To" and "4PM In
Calabasas".[201]
In June 2016, former NFL player and broadcast show host Marcellus Wiley
alleged that on his ESPN show, Drake or Lamar had given an interview in
which they started "talking noise" and claimed that they had problems
with the other individual. The interview was eventually not aired and
Wiley said it had been "destroyed".[213]
Wiley said that the interview would have escalated the reported feud to
become official with diss tracks being directed at the other side.[214][215] Following an almost year-long hiatus from music, Lamar released "The Heart Part 4".
It was speculated that Lamar's line, "One, two, three, four, five / I
am the greatest rapper alive" was a response to Drake's line, "I know I
said top five, but I'm top two / And I'm not two and I got one" on the
song "Gyalchester".[216][217] Kendrick proceeded to insult rappers who have ghostwriters in an interview with Rolling Stone
in August 2015. It was speculated that the insult was directed towards
Drake, who has seen controversy due to the use of "ghostwriters" on
songs such as "RICO".[218]
Lamar has also feuded with Detroit rapper and former collaborator Big Sean.
Following the release of Sean's track "Control" in August 2013 where
Lamar calls Sean out and claims he's gonna "murder" him, Sean responded
in praise, saying, "Alright, that's what it need to get back to, it need
to get back to hip-hop, that culture."[219] In January 2015, Sean later spoke on "Control", saying that the song was "negative"[220] and a month later released the "Me, Myself, and I".[221] In October 2016, Big Sean released "No More Interviews" with shots directed at Lamar.[222]
Media
In May 2018, it was announced that Lamar was planning a departure from Spotify.[223] It came after he heard the streaming platform intended to ban fellow rapper XXXTentacion from their editorial and algorithmic playlists for his acts of violence against women.[223] The removal of XXXTentacion as well as R. Kelly arrived in accordance to Spotify's new Hate Content & Hateful Conduct policy.[224] Conceived in light of the #MeToo movement,
the removal policy sought to promote "openness, diversity, tolerance
and respect" by removing content that promotes, advocates, or incites
hatred and violence against an individual or group based on
characteristics.[225][226] According to The Guardian, a representative for Kendrick Lamar personally contacted Daniel Ek to air his frustrations with the policy, claiming it was censorship.[223][227]Bloomberg reported that the representative reached out to Spotify Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek and head of artist relations Troy Carter, threatening to pull his music if the company kept the policy as it stood. Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, CEO of Top Dawg Entertainment, confirmed he threatened to remove music from the service in an interview with Billboard.[228][229] Kendrick had been a fan of XXXTentacion's music. He tweeted a link to his debut album 17 accompanied by praise for the controversial rapper's "raw thoughts."[230] Lamar stated, "Listen to this album if you want to feel anything."[227] He has since yet to comment or acknowledge the grisly allegations of domestic abuse charged against XXXTentacion.[230]
In response to the criticism, Spotify reversed their policy and
reinstated XXXTentacion's music back onto playlists after other artists
followed suit in threatening to pull their musical works.[227]
Business ventures
In December 2014, it was announced that Lamar had started a partnership with sportswear brand Reebok.[231] In 2017, it was announced that Lamar entered a collaboration deal with Nike.[232]
On March 5, 2020, Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free announced the
launching of pgLang, which is described as a multilingual,
artist-friendly service company.[233][234]
In a press release, Dave Free claimed that the company "is not a record
label, a movie studio, or a publishing house. This is something new. In
this overstimulated time, we are focused on cultivating raw expression
from grassroots partnerships."[235] The announcement also featured a "visual mission statement," a four-minute short film starring Lamar, Baby Keem, Jorja Smith, and Yara Shahidi.[236]
Impact
Commenting on Lamar's discography, Esquire UK
editor Olivia Ovended wrote in 2020, "even if you're not overly
familiar with Lamar's back catalogue, his influence in music is
everywhere, from the West Coast hip-hop now being made by Anderson Paak. to the trap of Gucci Mane. He is—and we'll brook no argument here—the greatest rapper making music today,"[237] while The New Yorker journalist Carrie Battan considered him "California's biggest hip-hop artist since the nineteen-nineties."[238]History.com
considered Lamar's Pulitzer Prize for Music award as "a sign of the
American cultural elite's recognition of hip-hop as a legitimate
artistic medium."[239]CNN Entertainment listed him among "the 10 artists who transformed music this decade"[240] and NME included him among "10 artists who defined the 2010s."[241]NPR writer Marcus J. Moore noticed Lamar's rap-jazz aesthetic present on his repertoire, "he's at the vanguard of this movement, proving that he too is a rule breaker, just like Miles, Herbie, Coltrane, Glasper and Hargove,
who all took bold creative risks to push jazz into uncharted
territory," and stated that Lamar is introducing jazz to a generation
"who might only know it through their parents' old record collections."[242]Esquire US
writer Matt Miller opined about the rapper's videography in 2017,
crediting Lamar for "reviving" the music video as "a powerful form" of social commentary, citing as examples "Alright" and "Humble".[243]
Lamar has received two honors in his hometown. On May 11, 2015, he received the California State Senate's Generational Icon Award from State Senator Isadore Hall III (D–Compton) who represents California's 35th district.
From the senate floor, Lamar told the legislature, "Being from the City
of Compton and knowing the parks that I played at and the
neighborhoods, I always thought how great the opportunity would be to
give back to my community off of what I do in music."[253] On February 13, 2016, Mayor of Compton, California Aja Brown presented Lamar with the key to the city, for "representing Compton's evolution, embodying the New Vision for Compton."[254]
He appeared for the first time on the Time100 list of most influential people in 2016.[7] His debut major-label release, good kid, m.A.A.d city, was named one of "The 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time" by Rolling Stone.[255]To Pimp a Butterfly was ranked by many publications as one of the best albums of the 2010s (decade), with The Independent placing it first.[250] In 2015, Billboard included Lamar in "The 10 Greatest Rappers of All-Time."[256]Complex magazine has ranked Lamar atop "The 20 Best Rappers in Their 20s" annual lists in 2013, 2015 and 2016.[257]
DAMN. won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, making Lamar the first non-jazz or classical artist to win the award.[258] In collecting his award on May 30, 2018, new Pulitzer administrator Dana Canedy,
the first woman and African American to lead the organization, told
him: "Congratulations, looks like we're both making history this year."[259]
In April 2015, Lamar became engaged to his high school girlfriend, beautician Whitney Alford.[260] He is a cousin of NBA player Nick Young.[261] He used to smoke cannabis, but has since quit.[262]
Lamar is a devout Christian,[263] having converted following the death of a friend.[264] He has been outspoken about his faith in his music[265] and interviews.[266] He announced to the audience during Kanye West's Yeezus Tour that he had been baptized in 2013.[266][267][268] Lamar has credited God for his fame and his "deliverance" from crime that often plagued Compton in the 1990s.[269] He also believes his career is divinely inspired and that he has a greater purpose to serve mankind, saying in an interview with Complex
in 2014, "I got a greater purpose, God put something in my heart to get
across and that's what I'm going to focus on, using my voice as an
instrument and doing what needs to be done."[270] The introductory lines to his 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City include a form of the Sinner's Prayer.[271] His song "i" discusses his Christian faith.[272]
He dressed up as Jesus for Halloween in 2014 and explained, "If I want
to idolize somebody, I'm not going to do a scary monster, I'm not gonna
do another artist or a human being—I'm gonna idolize the Master, who I
feel is the Master, and try to walk in His light. It's hard, it's
something I probably could never do, but I'm gonna try. Not just with
the outfit but with everyday life. The outfit is just the imagery, but
what's inside me will display longer."[273] His 2017 album Damn has a recurring theme based around religion and struggle.[274]
During the 2012 presidential election,
Lamar stated, "I don't vote. I don't do no voting, I will keep it
straight up real with you. I don't believe in none of the shit that's
going on in the world."[275]
He went on to say that voting was useless: "When I say the president
can't even control the world, then you definitely know there's something
else out there pushing the buttons. They could do whatever they want to
do, we['re] all puppets."[276]
Several days before the 2012 presidential election, he reversed his
previous claim that he was not going to vote and said that he was voting
for Barack Obama because Mitt Romney did not have a "good heart".[277] Lamar later met Obama in January 2016 in promotion of Obama's My Brother's Keeper Challenge. Speaking about the meeting, Lamar said, "We tend to forget that people who've attained a certain position are human."[278] Before the meeting, Obama said in an interview that his favorite song of 2015 was Lamar's "How Much a Dollar Cost".[279]
In a candid, in-depth interview with Rolling Stone, Kendrick Lamar
goes deep on bridging the pop/hip-hop divide, working with Bono, the
pitfalls of stardom and more. Mark Seliger for Rolling Stone
Kendrick Lamar
has a lot going on right now, but you’d never know it. Backstage in
Duluth, Georgia, a few hours before his latest sold-out arena show, he’s
radiating unearthly levels of clear-eyed serenity from his perch on a
dressing-room couch. He’s wearing a peach sweatsuit and white Nikes, and
carrying a plastic cup of green juice – “a little kale, apple, spinach.
Shit good.” The fuel must work: He has a Number One pop hit with
“HUMBLE.,” an elaborate video with Rihanna about to drop, a couple of
dozen tour dates left to go.
Freakish things keep happening in 2017, most of them awful,
but at least one anomaly is for the better. Popular music’s most
exciting and innovative young artist – the best rapper of his
generation, and that’s just the start – has somehow become one of its
biggest. And Lamar landed there without compromise, after releasing
three classic albums in a row.
His major-label debut, 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, was
vivid autobiography, a virtuosic deconstruction of gangsta rap centered
around tales of a childhood in Compton, where many of his friends were
gangbangers and police harassment was a constant threat. The follow-up,
2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly, was a dense, cerebral, jazzy,
dazzling meditation on race in America that spawned one of the decade’s
most important songs, the Black Lives Matter anthem “Alright” – but no
radio smashes. On his latest, this year’s DAMN., he switched lanes, managing to make an LP that’s just as smart and conceptual, but tighter, hookier and more accessible.
Lamar, 30, is pleased with his recent commercial triumphs, but says
it’s not the goal: “If I can make one person – or 10 million people –
feel a certain type of euphoria in my music, that’s the whole point.”
You rapped about teenage dreams of “livin’ life like rappers do” –
but your own life as a rapper has turned out to be pretty sedate. What
are your vices at this point? My biggest vice is being addicted
to the chase of what I’m doing. It turns into a vice when I shut off
people that actually care for me, because I’m so indulged spreading this
word. Being on that stage, knowing that you’re changing people’s lives,
that’s a high. Sometimes, when you’re pressing so much to get something
across to a stranger, you forget people that are closer to you. That’s a
vice.
Do you ever feel like you should be having more fun? Everybody’s
fun is different. Mine is not drinking. I drink casually, from time to
time. I like to get people from my neighborhood, someone that’s fresh
out of prison for five years, and see their faces when they go to New
York, when they go out of the country. Shit, that’s fun for me. You see
it through their eyes and you see ’em light up.
People treat you like you’re a saint or a monk, which must be weird. But the people closest to me really know who I am. They get all of the versions.
Is there maybe something of the monk about you, though? I
guess that can go back to when I was a kid. It felt like I was always in
my own head. I still got that nature. I’m always thinking. I’m always
meditating on the present or the future.
Was there a sense that you were special as a kid? From what
my family tells me, I carried myself as a man – that’s why they called
me “Man Man.” It put a stigma on the idea of me reacting as a kid
sometimes – I would hurt myself and they would expect me not to cry.
That put a lot of responsibility on me, got me ready for the
responsibility my fans put upon me. I ended up getting tough skin, too,
even with criticism. My first time in the studio, [label chief] Top Dawg
was like, “Man, that shit wack.” Other artists around couldn’t handle
that. But it made me go back in the booth and go harder.
Where did all that maturity come from? It just came from
being around older motherfuckers, man. I was seven years old playing
tackle football with 14-year-olds. Anybody my older cousins was hanging
with, that’s who I wanted to hang with. I’ve always been short [chuckles]. Everybody was always bigger and older than me. It gave me insight on people.
You’ve said you were one of the only ones among your friends with a dad around – and at the end of the new album you suggest that may have saved your life. How so? It taught me how to deal with [pauses]
… emotions. Better than a lot of my peers. When you see kids doing
things that the world calls harmful or a threat, it’s because they don’t
know how to deal with their emotions. When you have a father in your
life, you do something, he’ll look at you and say, “What the fuck is you
doing?” Putting you in your place. Making you feel this small.
That was a privilege for me. My peers, their mothers and grandmothers
may have taught them the love and the care, but they couldn’t teach them
that.
What makes you lose your temper? People that are around me
that are energy-suckers or someone that is not driven the same way I’m
driven. Can’t have that around me. Life is too short.
You have that line “Shit I’ve been through probably offend you,” and you do that rundown of “murder, conviction, burners. …” I can’t tell you the shit that I’ve been through without telling you the
shit that I’ve been through. I’m gonna say, “I know murder, conviction,
burners, boosters, burglars, dead, redemption, scholars, fathers dead.”
I’m-a give you a breakdown of my life from the time I was born all the
way till I was 21.
There’s a certain amount of trauma implicit in the stories you
tell – you witnessed murders, even as a little kid. How much have you
grappled with it as an adult? Well, you know, it was also just a
lot of mothafuckin’ parties and a lot of humor, which sometimes blocks
the fucked-up shit that I’ve seen. All of the funny shit with my
crazy-ass uncles and my pops – he’s funny as fuck. My mom’s a
crazy-as-fuck, funny, loving person. These things countered the negative
shit, helped me to be able to understand tragedy, but not break from
it.
What makes you laugh now? Shit, everything makes me laugh. Everything. This guy right here [points to his videographer]?
He got something under his hat that makes me bust up laughing every
time he takes it off. I didn’t even know God invented hairlines like
that. That shit is terrible [laughs]! I always say that the best
entertainers have to have the most wickedest sense of humor, to be able
to take pain and change it into laughter.
Other than a few lyrics, you’ve been quiet about Donald Trump. Why? I
mean, it’s like beating a dead horse. We already know what it is. Are
we gonna keep talking about it or are we gonna take action? You just get
to a point where you’re tired of talking about it. It weighs you down
and it drains your energy when you’re speaking about something or
someone that’s completely ridiculous. So, on and off the album, I took
it upon myself to take action in my own community. On the record, I made
an action to not speak about what’s going on in the world or the
places they put us in. Speak on self; reflection of self first. That’s
where the initial change will start from.
In your mock interview with Tupac on “Mortal Man,” you asked him
how he kept his sanity in the face of success. What’s your answer to
that question? Things could be worse. That’s how I look at it. I
always go back to that – food stamps and welfare and being evicted out
of house rentals. I still got family that go through hard times, and I
have to look out for them. Think of it like this: This lifestyle I live
now has only been, what, five years. Since 2012. Before that, it was a
whole two decades of not knowing what’s next to come. I still have that
embedded in me. So I can’t let my career get the best of me.
On “ELEMENT.” you make that funny distinction between “black artists and wack artists.” What, to you, defines a wack artist? I
love that question. How would I define a wack artist? A wack artist
uses other people’s music for their approval. We’re talking about
someone that is scared to make their own voice, chases somebody
else’s success and their thing, but runs away from their own thing.
That’s what keeps the game watered-down. Everybody’s not going to be
able to be a Kendrick Lamar.
I’m not telling you to rap like me. Be you. Simple as that. I watch a
lot of good artists go down like that because you’re so focused on what
numbers this guy has done, and it dampers your own creativity. Which
ultimately dampers the listener, because at the end of the day, it’s not
for us. It’s for the person driving to their 9-to-5 that don’t feel
like they wanna go to work that morning.
Is it ever OK for a rapper to have a ghostwriter? You’ve obviously written verses for Dr. Dre yourself. It
depends on what arena you’re putting yourself in. I called myself the
best rapper. I cannot call myself the best rapper if I have a
ghostwriter. If you’re saying you’re a different type of artist and you
don’t really care about the art form of being the best rapper, then so
be it. Make great music. But the title, it won’t be there.
If it turned out that you somehow had a ghostwriter, people would really want to meet that guy. [Laughs] You’re right.
Every time you open your mouth to rhyme, you have to uphold that
reputation, live up to your own boasts. How do you deal with that? Well,
that’s the challenge that keeps me going. Can I outdo myself again? Can
I make a better rhyme than I made last time? That’s the whole chase. If
that wasn’t there, then I’d have stopped after good kid, after I had my first platinum album. But, you know, you see Jay-Z [chuckles].
He’s a billionaire. You see Dr. Dre. Jay is still on his pen game,
because it’s always a chase to see if you’re not only still true to the
culture, but still can generate a creative process that’s organic for
you, that can challenge yourself.
Do you ever worry about running out of words? Nah, man. I can’t even think about that. Not now. Not right now. Definitely not.
How did Bono end up on the song “XXX.”? We had a
[different] record we were supposed to be doing together. He sent it
over, I laid some ideas to it, and we didn’t know where it was going. I
just happened to have an album coming out, so I just asked him, like,
“Yo, would you do me this honor of letting me use this record, use this
idea that I want to put together because I’m hearing a certain type of
808, a certain drum to it.” And he was open to it.
So you kind of cannibalized an existing song and stuck it in, which you do from time to time. I
can do that. It just has to make sense. There’s a lot of great records
and great features that the world probably will never hear, because it
just didn’t feel right, no matter how big the name was on it. But Bono
has so much wisdom and so much knowledge, in music and in life. Sitting
on the phone with him, I could talk to him for hours. The things he’s
doing around the world, of just helping people, is inspiring.
Your own trip to Africa, you said, was a really big deal for you. Why? It
just felt like a place where I belonged. It was as simple as that. You
hear about the land and you hear untold truths about it, and now you’re
old enough to witness it yourself. It just gave me a whole other
perspective on where I’m from. What we’re doing in the city of Compton
and how the world is just so much bigger than the city of Compton. It
just followed me back to the studio. It felt weird when we had to leave
and get back on that flight. We all said the same thing, like, “Damn, we
gonna go back to the city. This is home, for real.”
In South Africa, you went to the prison where Nelson Mandela was jailed, right? We
sat inside the actual cell. We saw the stones that they had to dig up
day to day. That was crazy. You could feel their spirits there,
basically saying, “Take a piece of the story back to your community.”
That’s exactly what I did. To Pimp a Butterfly, which is me talking to my homeboys with the knowledge and the wisdom that I gained.
What went through your head sitting in Mandela’s cell? How
strong this man was. If you could see this cell, man. And they’re laying
on the floor, a cold floor. To still be able to carry out a message and
socially move your people from inside that cell, you just gotta be a
strong individual.
How did “HUMBLE.” start? It was the beat first, actually.
[Producer] Mike Will sent the beat over. All I could think of was
[Marley Marl’s] “The Symphony” and the earliest moments of hip-hop,
where it’s complex simplicity, but it’s also somebody making moves.
That beat feels like my generation, right now. The first thing that came
to my head was, “Be humble.”
Who are you talking to in the chorus – yourself? Definitely.
It’s the ego. When you look at the song titles on this album, these are
all my emotions and all my self-expressions of who I am. That’s why I
did a song like that, where I just don’t give a fuck, or I’m telling the
listener, “You can’t fuck with me.” But ultimately, I’m looking in the
mirror.
You have a Number One record, which means, on some level, you’re a pop artist. It
gets tricky because you can have that one big record, but you can still
have that integrity at the same time. Not many can do it … wink-wink [laughs].
Still have them raps going crazy on that album and have a Number One
record, wink-wink. Call it whatever you want to call it. As long as the
artist remains true to the craft of hip-hop and the culture of it, it is
what it is.
The track “LOVE.” is probably another hit – it’s the poppiest
thing you’ve ever done. But you must draw a line somewhere where things
get too soft for you. We call it ear candy. There’s ear candy,
and then there’s corny. You have to have an incredible ear to recognize
it and an incredible team to recognize it, to know the differences. It
takes years of experience. Years of making wack shit [laughs],
and knowing what works for you, and also knowing when to step out of
your box and try things that feel good and still can remain you.
Have you recorded songs where you’re like, “That sounds like a Number One hit, but it’s corny – I’m never putting that out”? For
sure. I’ve done stuff just freestyling shit on a mic and it could be a
possible smash, but just for the sake of my brand and where I want it to
go, sometimes you’ve gotta look for the long run, rather than what’s
right in front of you.
Do you also reject songs just because they don’t fit the album concept?
I’ve done that a lot. I care about the body of work, not just a big
single. I come from that era. I can’t shake it, either, no matter how
big streaming gets. With streaming, you just gotta have great songs.
How consciously were you trying to make “DAMN.” a more accessible album than “Butterfly”? The
initial goal was to make a hybrid of my first two commercial albums.
That was our total focus, how to do that sonically, lyrically, through
melody – and it came out exactly how I heard it in my head. … It’s all
pieces of me. My musicality has been driving me since I was four years
old. It’s just pieces of me, man, and how I execute it is the ultimate
challenge. Going from To Pimp a Butterfly to DAMN., that
shit could have crashed and burned if it wasn’t executed right. So I had
to be real careful on my subject matter and how I weave in and out of
the topics, where it still organically feels like me.
When you did the “Bad Blood” remix with Taylor Swift, were you
aware that you were taking sides in a pop beef – since she was
apparently addressing Katy Perry?
[Through laughter] No, I wasn’t aware of that, bro. That’s a
great question. No! On the record, no. Which makes it even more funny
now, for sure. That’s far beyond my concern. I have to stay away from
that, for sure. That’s some real beef [laughs].
What did you learn working with Beyoncé on Lemonade? How
particular to be about your music. She’s a perfectionist. Think about
the BET performance. She was very particular – the lighting, the camera
blocking, the transition from the music to the dancing. It was
confirmation of something I already knew.
Your videos keep getting more ambitious – have you gotten acting offers? Yeah,
definitely. But I’d have to be 110,000 percent in. That’s a skill, a
talent that people perfect with years of rehearsing. For me to just jump
in because I’m Kendrick Lamar, I’m not taking that pat on the back.
I’ll wait until I’m able to take some time off and study the craft. And
right now, I be more sliding onto the side of directing.
In music, you seem to think like a producer, even if you don’t give yourself those credits. I’ll
tell you this: You can’t make them type of albums just by producers
sending you beats. You have to be in the grit with ’em. You’ve gotta be
there on every snare, every 808, every transition, every arrangement.
You just have to study and be in the nook of it. I’m there for the whole
process. That’s one of the reasons why I can formulate that
cohesiveness.
But someone like Future pretty much raps over the beats he gets,
and he’s great in his own way. You two are so different, so it was
interesting to hear you on the “Mask Off” remix. He’s his own genius. I’ve watched him in the studio. The way he comes up with the melodies is [snaps fingers]
like that, you know. You have to speak a certain type of language and
also have a great study in music – the same way I have – for what he’s
done. I’m sure he’s grown up off a ton of R&B. Watching him come up
with the melodies, that’s a whole other ballgame, to understand them
sonics.
What’s your favorite Drake song? Favorite Drake song [chuckles]. I got a lot of favorite Drake songs. Can’t name one off the back. … He has plenty.
Do you prefer him singing or rapping? Both. Yeah.
On your earliest mixtape, from when you were 16, there are points where you sound just like Jay-Z. Oh,
yeah. That was my guy. Still is. I’m still a fan. That was just a page I
took out of his book, to be able to carry a lyric through conversation
and make it feel like I’m sitting right here talking to you.
When did you truly find your own style? I think it was the day I said I was gonna go by my real name, Kendrick Lamar.
Instead of K-Dot? Yeah. And really just tell my
story. Once I did that, it was easier for me to find my own voice,
because nobody can tell my story the way I tell it.
In 2010, you recorded “The Heart Pt. 2,” which was a breakthrough in its emotional honesty. How did that happen? I
remember saying to myself, “I just wanna show a spew of emotion on a
record. I don’t care how long the bars are, but people are literally
gonna have to feel me.” I told myself that if I can’t connect that way,
then it ain’t no point in me just putting a bunch of good words
together. So that spaz-out toward the end, where I just choke up and
lose my breath – I wanna keep all that.
You can work yourself up into a state in the studio. Do you ever freak yourself out? The irony in that is I do freak myself out, because you go somewhere emotionally and then you damn near become a robot to
the emotion. You want to keep on doing takes over and over. That’s when
you really zone out and when you really connect with the audience. They
can hear that shit in the booth, just like in Eminem’s “The Way I Am,”
Jay-Z’s “Song Cry,” Tupac’s “Dear Mama.” You can tell those stories and
those ideas really hit home for them.
A lot of people think that lyrical virtuosity, having bars, isn’t as valued in hip-hop as it once was. Do you agree? I
made my mark at a right point in time, man – 2011 and 2012, it was just
that window where fans wanted to hear lyricism. You could probably step
in the game today with lyricism. But it may not be as respected,
because the times have changed so dramatically.
You’ve also suggested that critics don’t value lyricism as much as they claim to. You
know, hip-hop has a lot of hypocritical aspects of it, when you’re
talking about lyrics. There’s a thousand rappers that can give you bars
out there. But the local DJ isn’t gonna spin that, no matter how much of
a classic golden era he comes from, because he also has to make money
at the end of the day. That’s just the truth of the matter.
Was it André 3000 who first got it in your head that rappers can sing? For
my generation, it would definitely have to be André 3000. He was the
first guy. We’d come home from school and he’d be rapping on TV one day,
then you came home a week later and he has a song called “Prototype,”
which just blows our mind away, you dig what I’m sayin’?
Do you have songs that we’ve never heard that are just singing? Straight
melody-driven, for sure. Ultimately, that’s practice for me on my rap
albums. I write a lot of the melodies. Shit, usually 95 percent. May
jump in and jump out. Might give you a hook like “ELEMENT.” Might give
you a verse on a Travis Scott record with the “ghetto falsetto.” That’s
what I call it [laughs]. That’s just me flirting with the idea of being able to take it there.
Your falsetto sounds a bit like Curtis Mayfield’s. Are you a fan? Definitely. That was my father’s favorite. My mother’s favorite, actually.
Your cousin Carl is a member of the Hebrew Israelites, who believe
that African-Americans are the true descendants of the biblical
Israelites. Carl pops up in a voicemail on “FEAR.” You call yourself an
Israelite on the album. How much of his theology have you embraced, and how much of it is just you playing with the ideas? Everything
that I say on that record is from his perspective. That’s always been
my thing. Always listen to people’s history and their background. It may
not be like mine, it may not be like yours. It was taking his
perspective on the world and life as a people and putting it to where
people can listen to it and make their own perspective from it, whether
you agree or you don’t agree. That’s what I think music is for. It’s a
mouthpiece.
So what’s your opinion about the idea that Carl brings up, that black people are cursed by God as per Deuteronomy? That
shit’s truth. There’s so many different ways to interpret it, but it’s
definitely truth when you’re talking about unity in our community and
some of the things we have no control over. Where there’s fighting
against the government, where there’s fighting against our own political
views, there’s always a higher being, right there willing to stop it.
It could be argued that blaming a curse from God kind of excuses a racist system. Right. You take it how you wanna take it. The conversation’s there. We can sit and talk about it all day. I do, all day [laughs].
When you see a sea of white kids rapping back the lyrics to something like “Blacker the Berry,” what do you make of that? With
my listener, I know they actually hear what I’m saying, and I’m
speaking for a whole culture of people. So for the suburban kid who
doesn’t know how we grew up, or the history of my people, hearing them
lyrics, they get to understand. It’s almost like a history lesson that
wasn’t taught to them in school.
You’ve spoken of struggling with depression. Is that still with you? Um,
as of now, I’m cool. I won’t say I’m content. I don’t want that word.
I’m not satisfied yet. But as far as having a sense of personal stress
to that level, no. That’s a good space because I can now listen to my
listeners’ struggles and help them.
But you understand why so many artists end up self-destructing? Oh,
no, that’s easy. Especially in this lifestyle. Everything is at your
reach, whatever you want, whatever you need. When them cameras is on
you, anything you need. But who you really are is when the lights cut
off. It’s all about how much discipline you have.
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? I’m
mothafuckin’ optimistic for sure. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t! Come
on, man, this shit don’t happen to everybody. Almost all of my best
friends are in prison. Forty years plus. Every show, they wanna see
pictures. They tell me, “You gotta be optimistic as fuck to be where you
at. We didn’t have that. The glass was always halfway empty.” And it’s
not just being optimistic. It’s really about being responsible. You can
talk about dreams all day and “what I want,” but you gotta put an action
behind it.
But you’ve also wondered aloud whether we’re living in the End Times. I balance that by giving of myself as much as possible, in the hope to pass along to the next generation, or however many generations it is to go, the knowledge that I have. Given whatever fucked-up situation that we’re in, it’s all about the evolution of man. People get it fucked up because they think it’s the physical form. No, it’s evolution of the mind. So, as long as I’m dedicating
myself fully to my potential and this gift, there’s nothing else to think about. I can go to sleep peacefully. I can check out with a peaceful conscience.
Watch below: Mosi Reeves reviews Kendrick Lamar’s underground
output from 2004’s ‘The Hub City Threat’ to 2010’s ‘OD: Overly
Dedicated’
This couplet, which opens DAMN., the latest album from Kendrick Lamar, cuts right to the quick of the powerful anxiety that is so prevalent in all of his work: Am I strong enough spiritually? Physically? Is what I am doing right? Good?
These are universal concerns, of course, but acutely felt by one on
whom such great expectations are placed. From early on, maybe even from
the time of his first mixtape in 2004, when he was only 16, Lamar was a
rapper with profound potential. After a series of star-making
appearances on other artists’ songs, Lamar was, in 2011—even before the
release of a proper major label album of his own—already being hailed as
the best rapper on the West Coast. When it did arrive the next year on
Dr. Dre’s Aftermath imprint at Interscope, good kid, m.A.A.d city
only emboldened that opinion. In due course, the album went platinum
and Lamar was nominated for seven Grammys while being vaulted out of his
native Compton, California, to go on Kanye West’s Yeezus tour. GKMC
also probably set in motion the endless comparisons of Lamar to Tupac,
as well as the ongoing debate about whether he is the greatest rapper
alive.
That’s a lot. But if it was Lamar’s soaring ambition and lyrical
talent that made him particularly great, it is his honest introspection
in verse and the clarity with which he has described his interior life
that have made him sublime. His next album, 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly,
is nearly neurotic with its naked fears about losing out to the devil
(or “Lucy,” as he called the evil that tempts him); about letting down
his hometown; and about approaching escape—velocity fame and wealth,
which might, as it did for Tupac, rocket Lamar out of reach from any
sense of community, family, or belonging.
In signature fashion, the 30-year-old faced his fears head on. He
came home and put Compton, the Coast, and everyone else on his back to
make DAMN., a dazzling and utterly singular album that he says
he recorded—and is presently touring—to bring comfort and strength to
the rest of us. “LeBron James or the little boy around the corner,”
Lamar tells Dave Chappelle, a comedian and cultural critic who knows a
thing or two about greatness. “We come from the same struggles, and it
comes out of my mouth for them to relate to.”
And if what does come out is, despite all of Lamar’s successes, still
fraught with self-conscious anxiety, it seems to support the old truism
popularly attributed to Bertrand Russell: “The whole problem with the
world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
and wiser people”—or, we might say, the truly righteous and brave—”so
full of doubts.”
DAVE CHAPPELLE: Kendrick.
KENDRICK LAMAR: Dave. What’s going on, brother?
CHAPPELLE: The last time I saw you was in Australia with J. Cole—you
had just performed with Eminem. A lot’s happened since then.
LAMAR: Definitely. How you been?
CHAPPELLE: I’ve been great. I want to start by asking you about a
recent scandal in the comedy world: Kathy Griffin and the picture of her
holding Donald Trump’s decapitated head. My question for you is not
about politics, but about the content in your work. In comedy right now,
the issue is, “When does a comedian go too far?” And I imagine in
hip-hop that’s been a long-standing debate—even when I was coming up,
when Bill Clinton went after Sister Souljah. When you write, how much do
you think about the repercussions of anything you might say?
LAMAR: When I look at comedy—at Richard Pryor, at you—it’s all
self-expression. I apply that same method to my music. I came up
listening to N.W.A and Snoop. Like them, it’s in me to express how I
feel. You might like it or you might not, but I take that stand.
CHAPPELLE: I have this thing when I write jokes; I call it my unseen
audience. I’ll think of certain people when I’m writing certain types of
jokes. For instance: “What would my mother say?” Who do you think about
when you write? Are you thinking about the streets? A lot of your work
is openly spiritual and contemplative.
LAMAR: I really focus on what my fans will take from it, people
living their day-to-day lives. At the end of the day, the music isn’t
for me; it’s for people who are going through their struggles and want
to relate to someone who feels the same way they do. I’ve got to take
Mom out of the equation. I’ve got to go all-in, expressing myself, right
there in the moment.
CHAPPELLE: What did you think when LeBron James, after an amazing,
clutch performance [in a historic, 26-point comeback win during the
playoffs], was like, “I just listened to DAMN. and got amped.”
LAMAR: Moments like that … If I hadn’t expressed myself in the
studio, who’s to say he would have been listening to the album? LeBron
James or the little boy around the corner, we come from the same
struggles, and it comes out of my mouth for them to relate to.
CHAPPELLE: I know you’re a big Tupac fan. And Tupac used to talk
about this phenomenon, as he got successful, that he was out of context.
He’d say, “Where am I supposed to go? I can’t be around the ‘hood
anymore, and they don’t want me in the Hollywood Hills. Where am I
supposed to go?” Have you run into any altitude sickness from your
ascent, fighting all the way up to where you are now?
LAMAR: I think I’m still growing. The more people I meet, the more
cultures I start to embrace, the more people I open myself up to—it’s a
growing process I’m excited about. But it’s also a challenge for me, to
be at this level and still be able to connect with somebody who’s living
that everyday life. At first it was something I struggled with, because
everything was moving so fast. I didn’t know how to digest it. The best
thing I did was go back to the city of Compton, to touch the people who
I grew up with and tell them the stories of the people I met around the
world. Making To Pimp a Butterfly was me navigating those
experiences. I went to Africa and I was like, “This is something I can
enjoy and something I can challenge myself with.”
CHAPPELLE: Was Africa your “Oh, shit, I made it” moment?
LAMAR: I went to South Africa—Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg—and
those were definitely the “I’ve arrived” shows. Outside of the money,
the success, the accolades … This is a place that we, in urban
communities, never dream of. We never dream of Africa. Like, “Damn, this
is the motherland.” You feel it as soon as you touch down. That moment
changed my whole perspective on how to convey my art.
CHAPPELLE: Me and Mos Def argue about this all the time. Mos is of
the belief that a person with a platform has a responsibility to other
people. It’s the old adage, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I
don’t necessarily agree with that. I think some people can make
conscious records, and some people can make booty records, and other
people can make whatever the fuck they want records. But what do you
feel, personally, when you’re making a record? Do you have a mission
statement? What, if anything, do you hope to accomplish with your
platform?
LAMAR: As I’ve grown as an artist, I’ve learned that my mission
statement is really self-expression. I don’t want anybody to classify my
music. I want them to say, “This is somebody who’s recognizing his true
feelings, his true emotions, ideas, thoughts, opinions, and views on
the world, all on one record.” I want people to recognize that and to
take it and apply it to their own lives. You know what I’m saying? The
more and more I get out and talk to different people, I realize they
appreciate that—me being unapologetic in whatever views and approach I
have.
CHAPPELLE: That’s the way I like to do it, as well: go for broke. It feels better to just say it. Is “Duckworth” [a track on DAMN.
in which Lamar narrates the story of his father, “Ducky,” preventing an
armed robbery, as well as his own potential murder, at the KFC where he
was then working to provide for Lamar] a true story?
LAMAR: True story, and one of my favorite records on the album.
CHAPPELLE: A profound story, too. I like the meditation of it.
LAMAR: The idea that I wanted to put across from that event was one
of perspective. Everybody has their own perspective, and recognizing
someone else’s perspective blows my mind a hundred thousand percent. The
way that event unfolded … I had to sit down and ask my pops, “What was
your perspective at the moment?” And, “Did you ever think it would come
around full circle like that?” That always fascinated me.
CHAPPELLE: Is it strange to hear people interpret your lyrics, the
depth that they find in your work? The week the album came out, all
these kids were telling me about digging into the songs and picking out
clues. I don’t think every artist is listened to that way.
LAMAR: Everybody has their own way of hearing songs. My fans are
usually pretty on point. Sometimes they go all the way to the bottom of
it. It’s fascinating to me how far an idea can go. I wrote most of my
first album in my mom’s kitchen, and now I can go around the world and
hear people recite those lyrics, and understand the story, even though
they’re not from the same area I grew up in.
CHAPPELLE: How did you feel putting out the new album? Sometimes you
put something out and you don’t know what it’s going to do. But other
times—like a Steph Curry shot—it just feels good when the wrist snaps,
and it’s like, “Oh, this shit’s going in.” Are you having fun?
LAMAR: Definitely. I’m enjoying that people aren’t only listening to the album, but hearing the album. To go on that stage and perform that record, that’s the most fun I have. I get a full party every night.
CHAPPELLE: Do you develop a lot of new material from touring?
LAMAR: It comes from everywhere. I think now it initially starts on
tour. I like to talk to people; I don’t care if it’s a kid or an
80-year-old woman, I talk to people. Then I return to the studio and see
what comes together at the end of the day—but it’s definitely a
process.
CHAPPELLE: It seems like you maintain your relationships well, that
you’re paying attention to them. Have the changes in your lifestyle made
it harder to do that?
LAMAR: It will never be easy. There are so many people pulling at me
at one time—some want the business, some want my love, some just want my
support, just to be there or to acknowledge them the same way I used
to. To be able to figure that out is an ongoing process, because there’s
always another show, another album, another moment that I don’t want to
miss. But I’m pacing myself. I hope the powers that be keep me on a
straight course.
CHAPPELLE: From the outside looking in, you’re doing beautifully,
man. Your work is great, and you seem grounded and centered and focused.
When I was your age, I used to fuck up all the time. [laughs]
Hopefully, I can catch one of your shows on the road. I’ve heard nothing
but good things. As a matter of fact, the first time I heard about you
was through Mos, who told me years ago, “You’ve got to watch this kid.”
LAMAR: Mos gave me a lot of game early on. A lot of game.
CHAPPELLE: He said to me that you’re the one. Turns out he was right.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER:
DAVE CHAPELLE IS A COMEDIAN, ACTOR, WRITER, AND CO-CREATOR OF CHAPPELLE’S SHOW, WHICH AIRED FROM 2003 TO 2006. HIS STAND-UP SPECIALS THE AGE OF SPIN AND DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS WERE RELEASED ON NEFTLIX EARLIER THIS YEAR.
Kendrick Lamar: ‘I am Trayvon Martin. I’m all of these kids’
‘I’ve
been conflicted since I was a little boy’: Kendrick Lamar photographed
in London this month by Ellis Parrinder for the Observer New Review.
The
Compton rapper’s politically charged album To Pimp a Butterfly has been
widely hailed as a modern masterpiece. Here he talks about the
difficulty of coming to terms with his past, and why addressing serious
issues is a matter of integrity
Last
year, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
presented research demonstrating that “youth living in inner cities
show a higher prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder than
soldiers”. The report estimates that 30% of young people in urban
“combat zones” suffer from some form of PTSD.
When I mention this to Kendrick Lamar, he nods and says: “That’s real.” Recently, he was making the video for his new single, Alright,
when he was startled by a loud bang. In a split second the successful
28-year-old rapper disappeared and the wary teenager from the streets of
Compton, California resurfaced.
“I
don’t know if somebody threw a rocket at a trash can or what, but it
made a loud-ass popping sound and everybody who was in the car with me
ducked,” he remembers. “The instinct to get out the way when you hear a
popping sound, that’s real for me. I’m sure it’s real for a lot of
artists who grew up in neighbourhoods like that.”
Hip-hop
is obsessed with the distance between Then and Now. The ambitious MC’s
path from violence and deprivation to fame and wealth is the genre’s
ur-narrative. But nobody has unpacked the implications of that
transition as thoroughly as Kendrick does on his remarkable third studio
album, To Pimp a Butterfly.
When
it came out in March, it felt like the album hip-hop had been waiting
for. On the review aggregator website Metacritic it is one of the most acclaimed albums
ever with a 96% score. One critic called it “The Great American Hip-Hop
Album”. Recently, Kendrick visited a New Jersey high school where the
album was being used to teach students about “the dichotomy of black
culture in America” and accepted a Generational Icon award from the California state senate.
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When we meet, Kendrick heads the Billboard top 100 via a guest verse on Taylor Swift’s single Bad Blood. I wonder what a listener who discovers him that way will make of an album as dense, relentless and discomfiting as To Pimp a Butterfly.
“I
don’t know,” he says, smiling. “I know it’ll be challenging for a
listener who doesn’t know my music. The process of me making it is the
same process the listener’s going to have to deal with, and that’s
rolling with it. I had to roll with this record for two years but it was
a fun experience. That’s the place I’m putting the listener in.”
Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta video.
With 2012’s good kid, mAAd city,
an audacious concept album about his dicey adolescence, Kendrick
brought a leftfield sensibility to a mainstream platform and became
hip-hop’s new hero: tough, agile, erudite and questioning. The album
earned him a platinum disc, four Grammy nominations, fans including
Kanye West, Chris Rock and Taylor Swift, and guest verses for everyone
from Eminem and 50 Cent to Imagine Dragons and Dido. It also triggered a profound spiritual crisis.
If good kid, mAAd city was a bildungsroman then To Pimp a Butterfly
(among other things, it’s a riff on Harper Lee and a metaphor for art
versus commerce) is a morality play. When Kendrick’s mentor, Dr Dre,
pops up on the first song to say, “Remember, anybody can get it. But the
hard part is keeping it,” he misses the point. Kendrick is interested
in interrogating what “it” means. For him, success is a minefield of
temptation and responsibility that he didn’t foresee. On the album he
labels himself a “fucking failure” and a “hypocrite” who suffers from
“survivor’s guilt”, before describing how he rediscovered his
equilibrium.
What
lifts the album out of that charmless category of musicians moaning
about fame is the depth of Kendrick’s insight and the way he relates it
to the broader African-American experience. This is hip-hop with a
capacious sense of history, influenced by George Clinton and Miles
Davis, James Brown and Sly Stone, Ralph Ellison and Alex Haley. Emotionally, it runs the gamut. When Kendrick released the Grammy-winning track i last year, with its sunny Isley Brothers guitar loop and self-affirming chorus of “I love myself”, some fans worried that he’d gone soft, but on To Pimp a Butterfly
it’s revealed as a necessary counterweight to the brutally
self-lacerating u, in which he tells himself “everything is your fault”.
One recurring word sums up both the record and the man who made it:
“conflicted”.
“It’s really about me trying to
balance these worlds – where I used to be and where I am today – from
all different angles,” he says. “This album was therapy for me. I was
looking at myself in the mirror and trying to figure out who I really
am.”
Kendrick isn’t just smaller than I
expected (he’s 5ft 6in and slight) but quieter and gentler, too, with
none of the gruff intensity you hear on a song like King Kunta. When he visits the Observer
office, fresh off the red-eye from Washington DC, he keeps a low
profile in black jeans, white trainers and a blue jacket, his hair
twisted into braids. He carries himself like someone with nothing to
prove. Up close, he has a certain aura but it’s something calmer and
weightier than star quality.
At the same time
he has a boyish, playful streak (his favourite food is Fruity Pebbles
cereal) and is quick to smile. When we walk down the corridors of a
nearby photo studio we pass a fish tank and Kendrick bangs on the glass,
leaning in to watch the startled fish dart back and forth. He might be
offering me a neat metaphor for sudden fame (he’s the fish) but I think
he’s just mucking about. “When you enter the music industry, your life
basically starts over,” he says later. “I’m still young and still
learning.”
Kendrick Lamar - i video.
One reason that To Pimp a Butterfly has resonated so powerfully is timing. Its complex reflections on identity and racism landed in the wake of the Black Lives Matter
movement and a string of cases in which unarmed black men died at the
hands of the police. “The timing of both was kind of uncanny,” the
R&B singer D’Angelo said recently, comparing it to his own similarly
weighty and panoramic Black Messiah
album. “It was almost a sign: motherfuckers are making some shit that’s
relevant to the times.” But Kendrick started plotting the angriest
song, The Blacker the Berry, long before his last album and wrote the
first draft in a furious burst after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead by vigilante George Zimmerman in February 2012.
“These
are issues that if you come from that environment it’s inevitable to
speak on,” he says in a studio dressing room, twanging a wodge of
mint-green gum between his fingers. “It’s already in your blood because I
am Trayvon Martin, you know. I’m all of these kids. It’s already
implanted in your brain to come out your mouth as soon as you’ve seen it
on the TV. I had that track way before that, from the beginning to the
end, and the incident just snapped it for me.”
It’s
often said that rappers are discouraged from speaking out about
politics by a controversy-shy record industry but Kendrick isn’t buying
it. “No, there’s no excuse,” he says. “It’s really just about integrity.
We all like to have fun. I like to have fun, too. But where do you stop
and say, ‘You know what? There’s actually some real shit going on out
there that people can relate to more than any singalong I can bring to
the table.’”
He pulls back, worried about
sounding didactic. “It’s just about balance. I don’t fault other
artists. I don’t say this person should be doing that. As conscious as
my music sounds, I would never point the finger because every day I make
mistakes.”
*****
When Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was a kid,
his neighbourhood was notorious. In 1987, the year he was born, Compton
became the deadliest city in California. When he was one, NWA
immortalised it in Straight Outta Compton, gangsta rap’s big
bang. When he was eight, Dr Dre and Tupac Shakur (whom Kendrick
“interviews”, using an old audio recording, at the end of To Pimp a Butterfly) came to the neighbourhood to film the video for California Love. Kendrick was there.
He
sighs at the memory. “Tupac in Compton, man! To kids, even grown men,
he was like a superhero. I don’t know what gave him this aura but he had
something else. Now I’m old enough to say I don’t think even he knew
it.”
As the son of two Black Panther activists,
Tupac was almost destined to make an impact, but Kendrick’s origins
were more humble. Kenny Duckworth and Paula Oliver, whose voices can be
heard on good kid, mAAd city, moved to Compton from the south
side of Chicago in 1984 with just $500. Trying to escape gang violence,
they migrated from the frying pan to the fire. Kendrick’s political
awareness grew from what he saw rather than what he was told.
“My
parents don’t come from the Black Panther side of Chicago,” says
Kendrick, the oldest of four siblings. “They believe in certain things
but they were just trying to manoeuvre through the cracks. Most of the
things that I speak of now came from having my own theories and my own
perspective on what’s going on in the community.”
Kendrick with his mentor and fellow Compton rapper Dr Dre. Photograph: JABPromotions/Rex Shutterstock
Kendrick
was a wise, watchful, self-contained child rather than a natural
showboater. When he began rapping he was driven less by the desire to
perform (he stuttered when he was nervous or excited) than by sheer love
of words. “It was always the phrases,” he says with relish. “The
wittiness, the clarity, how you manipulate words and make them mean
other things. I practised the wording for a long time before I got the
delivery down pat. I couldn’t be as intense as I can be now.”
Rapping
“on the corners” made Kendrick popular and cured his stutter. He
released his first mixtape, under the pseudonym K-Dot, in 2003, but
there were a lot of distractions in Compton. Good kid, mAAd city
(mAAd is an acronym for “My Angry Adolescence Divided”) documents the
summer he turned 17 and fell in with a bad crowd, doing things he still
won’t fully disclose. “Some things don’t need to be said.” But he says
he wrote enough songs to fill a sequel, which tells you a lot about what
he got up to and how it haunts him. He had seen his first murder victim
when he was five and grown used to seeing the casualties of gang wars
between Bloods and Crips but now it was his friends lying still on
hospital gurneys, shot down by gang members or, in one case, a police
officer.
He
escaped that life thanks to family, faith and hip-hop. “It was the
counterweight to peer pressure,” he says. “Whenever I wasn’t on the
streets with my homeys I was in the studio. It was something that kept
me out of trouble. So my mom would let me stay out till four in the
morning because she knew I was doing that.”
Did he feel he had a good chance of making it as a rapper?
“Sometimes.
It just depended on what type of day it was. If it was a day when I’m
doing something constructive like being in the studio, yeah, I may feel
like I can make it, but if it’s a day when I’m just hanging out and
somebody drives by, starts shooting, and the bullet barely misses me but
it hits the homey and kills him, I don’t feel like that no more. I’m
back to reality. So, some days I did, some days I didn’t, but there were
more days I didn’t.”
In his early 20s,
Kendrick went for it “full force”, appearing on records by established
stars Lil Wayne and the Game, and forming a collective called Black Hippy. In 2010 his fourth mixtape, Overly Dedicated, snagged the attention of Compton legend Dr Dre. The following year’s Section.80,
a dual reference to the federal housing benefit scheme Section 8 and
the generation born in the 1980s amid gang wars and Reagonomics, was a
morally nuanced concept album about two women. Good kid, mAAd city, released through Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment, was an instant sensation,
so universally admired that when the white rapper Macklemore beat
Kendrick to the Grammy for best rap album he texted him, “It’s weird and
sucks that I robbed you.”
‘You have so many different emotions you may not want to pour out on the microphone’: Kendrick onstage in Ottawa, 2013. Photograph: Mark Horton/WireImage
Kendrick came up so fast that he got the bends. He describes the process on the poem that runs through To Pimp a Butterfly like
a throbbing vein: “Resentment that turned into a deep depression/ Found
myself screaming in the hotel room.” That’s a real incident, he says:
“99% of my music is specific events.” He thinks the hotel was in
Atlanta, which would make it December 2013, during his tour with Kanye
West. What made him scream?
“It was something
that just accumulated,” he says. “You know when you get bad news after
bad news after bad news? And you can’t express this to nobody but you
got to relieve it in some type of way? I was able to bottle that moment
and put in on record.”
He had experienced
depression as a teenager and now it was back, triggered by a combination
of stress and guilt. He doesn’t like to talk about his problems anyway
but he also felt that his friends wouldn’t understand. “You can tell
them all day that it has its downside but if they’re doing bad
financially they don’t want to hear that shit! They don’t understand
that shit until they’re in it.”
Does he think other newly successful rappers feel similar discomfort and just don’t talk about it publicly?
“Oh,
definitely. They’d be lying to you if they said they didn’t. I find
myself to be quite confident as a person but you’re going to have that
piece of doubt in the back of your head because we’re human. We all have
it. It’s just I like to address it and not keep it bottled in, because I
don’t know what it could turn into.”
Kendrick’s
angst would have been easier to explain if he had been wrestling with a
tangible side-effect of success – a drug addiction, a financial
dispute, a media backlash – but it was all internal. Everything was
strange and new. Being around white people for the first time made him
insecure. Suddenly having big money made him discombobulated. I wonder
how he felt, as someone who grew up on food stamps in Section 8 housing,
when he got his first big paycheck.
“Man,
I was so excited!” he says, lighting up. “I didn’t know what to do with
it. To tell you the truth I wanted to spend it as fast as I could on
whatever I dreamed about. The kid in me, the person who never had
nothing growing up, is saying, ‘I want to spend this shit on some chains
and a car,’ but the other side that’s on the records is telling me,
‘You need to think wisely.’ I’ve been conflicted like that since I was a
little boy. Doing music is the only way for me to get that conflict
out. You heard of Gemini? There’s always two sides.”
On
the album, temptation is represented by a woman called Lucy, as in
Lucifer. “Lucy is all the [things] that I was thinking of that I know
can be detrimental to not only me but the people around me, and still be
tempted by them. That’s some scary shit. It’s like looking at a bullet
inside of a gun, knowing you can kill yourself with it, but you’re still
picking it up and playing with it.”
What kind of things?
“Everything
that we glorified in the hood – smoking, drinking, women, violence –
was at my feet times 10. All of it’s there. In the neighbourhood we
wanted to have power and with success comes power. That is temptation at
its highest.”
Did he do anything he regretted?
“Uh,
yeah, definitely. Not knowing how to utilise my power. I think a lot of
the mistakes I made was influencing some of the cats that I grew up
with.”
On the final song, Mortal Man, Kendrick
raps: “As I lead this army make room for mistakes and depression.” The
idea of leading an army might seem presumptuous, but the way Kendrick
sees it the role isn’t optional.
“You got it
whether you want it or not because you have thousands of people singing
your songs every night,” he says. “Your friends at the side of the
stage, they’re looking at you as somebody who made it. They’re following
you. And every mistake that you make, they’re going to make the same
mistakes.” Some people who were close to Tupac before his murder in 1996
have told Kendrick stories about the errors that his boyhood hero made:
“his influence on his homeboys and the things he could have done”. He
doesn’t want to repeat them.
Kendrick Lamar - Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe video.
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Two
months after his meltdown in Atlanta, Kendrick played three dates in
South Africa and decided to stay for a week, visiting Nelson Mandela’s
old cell on Robben Island. “It just snapped me back to reality,” he
says. “It gave me a whole other perspective. The tricky part is
explaining that bigger picture to those back in Compton. That’s some of
the message I was trying to convey on this album.”
On the record he beats himself up for leaving his old community behind for a while. Did they resent him?
“No,
they were proud of me. It’s funny, because when I talk to other rappers
or hear their music, they always come from a place where the
neighbourhood hates them now. I wouldn’t even try to say that. The
people who grew up with me actually knew my struggle and say, ‘OK,
that’s one kid who made it out.’”
*****
Kendrick is a remarkably clean-living rap star. He
doesn’t take drugs, rarely drinks, lives modestly and recently got
engaged to his high-school girlfriend, Whitney Alford (they live in a
rented condo in South Bay, LA County). Apart from sugary cereal, does he
have any vices at all?
“Selfishness,” he says
straight away. “I can completely shut out everybody in my life that I
care about because of my music. It becomes an addiction. You slowly
forget about real love.” He seems genuinely bothered by this. “Maybe
it’s just a personality trait that I [need to] work on because you hurt a
lot of people’s feelings when you can’t tell them that you love them.
That’s a huge flaw in my character, for sure.”
Kendrick considers To Pimp a Butterfly
a moral record rather than a political one. The Blacker the Berry
starts out as a scalding protest song (“You hate my people/ Your plan is
to terminate my culture”) but Kendrick complicates it by adding a verse
about black-on-black violence: “Why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was
in the street/ When gangbanging make me kill a nigga blacker than me?
Hypocrite!”
After he told Billboard
magazine, “When we don’t respect ourselves, how do we expect them to
respect us? It starts from within”, he was accused of indulging in
respectability politics. Rapper Azealia Banks tweeted that it was the
“dumbest shit I’ve ever heard a black man say”. Having experienced
police brutality himself, Kendrick feels he has nothing to apologise
for.
Kendrick with his high-school girlfriend, Whitney Alford. The couple recently got engaged. Photograph: Christopher Polk
“They
probably don’t know my music, or what I’ve been through, or what I’ve
done for my community when I used that word respect. So I really
couldn’t blame them for taking my words out of context.” What some
people regard as respectability politics, Kendrick considers
self-examination. “That last line, that’s the conflict in me growing up.
That’s me knowing my own demons and trying to reverse the curse. That’s
why it’s so important.”
He doesn’t mean
metaphorical demons. Kendrick is deeply religious and was baptised a
couple of years ago. “It just felt like something I had to do.” His
conversion was sparked years earlier by a friend’s grandmother who
approached him in a parking lot one day while he was mourning another
murdered friend. “A lot of my homeboys were getting killed, a lot of
them going to jail. I was put in a lot of situations I can’t even…” He
frowns, hesitates. “I still to this day can’t figure out why I wasn’t in
the same position as the victim.”
Does he believe in evil?
“I
don’t think people are evil. My homeboys, they’re not evil. These are
good-hearted people who just want to hang around and see the good things
in life. But when you’re around negativity, that’s where the negative
spirits dwell. And those spirits get inside you. I know it’s true. We
always wonder why people act the way they’re acting. We put the
statistics in it and we put history behind it, but we’re missing God in
the equation. The devil is real and he’s alive. Nobody ever brings that
shit up.”
Kendrick admits he has an apocalyptic
streak. “Even as a teenager, I always said I was in the last days.
That’s just something I’ve always believed in. It’s going to take more
than unity. It’s going to take faith.”
To Pimp a Butterfly
ends on a tense, ambivalent note. “It leaves you hanging,” he says. “I
end it with me telling my homeboys that we should be doing this. That
don’t necessarily mean they’re listening. That don’t necessarily mean
that I’m not going to get frustrated with them and say, ‘You know what?
Fuck it! I can’t change you and I’m not going to change me.’ I’m just
trying to figure out my place in the world and, lord willing, I’ll never
backtrack.”
When
he was making the album, Kendrick enjoyed the all-night sessions but
found some of the performances emotionally gruelling. “It’s not tough to
write,” he says. “When you’re writing from experiences, it’s like
that!” He clicks his fingers. “The hard part is actually recording it
because you have so many different emotions you may not want to pour out
on the microphone.”
Taylor Swift - Bad Blood ft Kendrick Lamar video.
He
says he wrote one lyric so angry that people around him vetoed it.
Obviously I want to know what it said. He hesitates. “Put it this way,
the lyrics and intensity on The Blacker the Berry are nothing compared
with this one record that I have in the vaults. It makes The Blacker the
Berry look like a kindergarten kid. It was probably a little bit too
far out for people to understand it.”
Well, now I want to hear it.
“Yeah,” he says, meaning never in a million years. “It’s damaging.”
Kendrick is currently rehearsing with his band to recreate To Pimp a Butterfly on
stage (“It has to be explosive”) but he already has an ambitious
concept for his next album. “I know exactly what I want to say next,” he
says with a teasing smile, still playing with his gum. “Everything is
going to make sense – not only to myself but to anybody who wants to
understand life and music. Everything will make a little more sense.”
One
thing he won’t be doing in the near future is complaining about fame.
By making this album he has made some kind of peace with the distance
between Then and Now.
“How
do I handle it?” he says. “The simplest way I can. Kendrick, what would
you rather be doing? Would you rather be on the corner running from
bullets all day or would you rather be taking pictures?” He’s grinning
now. “What shot do you want? A shot from a nine-millimetre or an iPhone
shot with a fan?” He clicks his fingers. “Once I do that, once I look at
the situation, I’m blessed, man.”
Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer win hailed as ‘big for music’
by MARK KENNEDY
April 17, 2018
Associated Press
FILE
- In this July 7, 2017, file photo, Kendrick Lamar performs during the
Festival d'ete de Quebec in Quebec City, Canada.On Monday, April 16,
2018, Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for music for his album "Damn."
(Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
NEW
YORK (AP) — The decision to award rapper Kendrick Lamar the Pulitzer
Prize for music represents a historic moment for hip-hop and American
music, according to two of the music jurors who picked the album “DAMN.”
as a finalist.
“It’s
big for hip-hop. I think it’s big for our country. It’s big for music.
But it’s big for the Pulitzers, too. Institutions are not stuck in time,
either. Institutions can change,” said Farah Jasmine Griffin, a
Columbia professor.
Lamar’s
win on Monday made history as the first non-classical or non-jazz
artist to win the prestigious prize since the Pulitzers included music
in 1943. Just having a rapper nominated for the prize is considered a
stunning development for awards that usually honor musicians of European
classical background.
“I
knew that there would be some anger and some resentment and some people
who wouldn’t like the idea, but surprisingly enough, I haven’t heard a
lot of that,” Griffin said.
Another
jury member was Grammy-nominated violinist Regina Carter, who linked
the award to the recent waves of people speaking up, pushing boundaries
and refusing to be told what and what is not worthy. “Great art has to
be acknowledged,” she said. “If a work is great enough, you can’t deny
it.”
The decision
was hailed as a turning point in music history by Jetro Da Silva, a
professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music who teaches a
class on hip-hop writing and production.
“We
are at a time in history here perhaps there is a new way to analyze
what is considered a contribution to music. Critical thinkers are asking
what it really means to be a composer and what is a composition,” he
said. “The sky’s the limit.”
In
addition to Griffin and Carter, the music jury this year included music
critic David Hajdu, Paul Cremo from the Metropolitan Opera and the
composer David Lang.
The
five-member music jury listened to about 180 pieces of music and after
deliberating for a few days then submitted to the final board three
works — Lamar’s album along with Michael Gilbertson’s “Quartet” and Ted
Hearne’s “Sound from the Bench.” Adding “DAMN.” was a unanimous decision
by all five.
“Everyone
expects that there would have been some form of resistance. There was
none,” said Griffin. “It was just welcomed by everyone as an opportunity
to have a serious conversation about the art, about Mr. Lamar’s work,
but also about what constitutes what kind of music that should be
eligible for this.”
The final decision
was made by the Pulitzer board, which hailed Lamar’s CD as “a virtuosic
song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic
dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of
modern African-American life.”
Carter
admits she quietly thought to herself that the board was unlikely to
give the award to Lamar. “Although we all strongly agreed that this
would be such an important step — if this were to really happen — I just
didn’t think it would, really.” She said she was happily shocked by the
final decision.
The
Pulitzers have been accused of past mistakes when it comes to
African-American contributions to music. In 1965, jurors recommended
awarding a special citation to Duke Ellington, but were rejected. And it
was not until 1997 that the Pulitzer for music even went to a jazz
work.
“All of us
sitting at that table were fully aware of Duke Ellington in 1965 being
passed over for the Pulitzer and a jazz artist not winning for some
time,” said Griffin. “We all brought a history to the table and thought,
‘Why not?’ and ‘Why not now?’”
The
Pulitzers have lately expanded their inclusion of popular music,
including honoring Bob Dylan’s lyrics with the prize for literature and
giving Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-inspired score for “Hamilton” the
Pulitzer for drama.
The
Lamar news stunned many and was cheered by the rappers’ fans, including
celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Anthony Bourdain, who wrote: “The
album was brilliant and deserves every accolade.” Leon W. Russell,
chairman of the NAACP, wrote on Twitter that the win conferred a
literary legitimacy but that Lamar had already gotten “street
credibility and artistic authority.”
TV
personality Charlamagne Tha God noted that Lamar joined
African-American luminaries such as playwright August Wilson, writers
Alex Haley and Toni Morrison, and musician John Coltrane as Pulitzer
winners. “Congrats to that brother! I’m inspired!” he wrote.
Carter,
who was awarded a so-called “genius” grant by the MacArthur Fellows
Program, said Lamar heartily deserved the award. “I think he’s a
genius,” he said. “It’s part of our tapestry. We have to stop dividing
the music and the art.”
Griffin,
a professor of English and African-American studies who has written
about Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, was a rookie on the
Pulitzer jury this year.
“I
will cherish that experience, of going through that process,” she said.
“On so many levels, I felt like this was major — both the music that we
put forward but also what happened in those deliberations.”
In a rare interview, the Compton rapper discusses Trump, Obama, and how we can all make a difference.
"I…
don't…know," Kendrick Lamar says when asked to explain why Donald
Trump became President of the United States. Few people understand
America the way Kendrick does, so surely he must know something about
how the billionaire reality TV star has happened to his country. He's
sitting in a little dark gray room backstage at Barclays Center in
Brooklyn on a Sunday afternoon. It's just a few hours before his show.
He's in silver Nike Air Maxs and a maroon sweatsuit, top and bottom,
with the TDE logo. That's Top Dawg Entertainment, Lamar's label. He's
calm and softly spoken and radiates intensity because his words are well
chosen and carry weight. Kendrick isn't voluble but he is deep. He's
perceptive, wise, and quite often brilliant, so like many Americans,
when it comes to Trump he's still in shock. "We all are baffled," he
says. "It is something that completely disregards our moral compass."
The shift is almost tangible for Kendrick because Obama is not just a
president he respected and admired, he's also a friend who loves his
music and invited him to the White House.
"I was talking to Obama," he says, "and the craziest thing he said
was, 'Wow, how did we both get here?' Blew my mind away. I mean, it's
just a surreal moment when you have two black individuals, knowledgeable
individuals, but who also come from these backgrounds where they say
we'll never touch ground inside these floors." A pause. He briefly
recalls his grandmother, who died when Kendrick was a teenager; how
incredible she might have found this, a black man in office, talking to
her grandson. "That's what blows me up. Being in there and talking to
him and seeing the type of intelligence that he has and the influence
that he has, not only on me, but on my community. It just always takes
me back to the idea of how far we have come along with this idea about
how [much] further we can go. Just him being in office sparks the idea
that us as a people, we can do anything that we want to do. And we have
smarts and the brains and the intelligence to do it."
Both
Barack and Kendrick came from nothing and ascended to legendary status
on the strength of their words and their gifts for oration. They sat and
talked in the Oval Office about the improbability of their lives – how did we both get here?
And now, as far as the White House is concerned, both are all but
considered enemies of the state. "It's a complete mindfuck," Lamar says
of going from visiting the White House to feeling hated by it.
"The
key differences [between Obama and Trump] are morals, dignity,
principles, common sense," he says. Where Obama was an inspiration, it's
hard for him to even respect Trump. "How can you follow someone who
doesn't know how to approach someone or speak to them kindly and with
compassion and sensitivity?" But ultimately the rise of Trump has
brought out something new in Kendrick. "It's just building up the fire
in me. It builds the fire for me to keep pushing as hard as I want to
push."
The fire inside must be blazing right now because Kendrick's newest release, Damn,
his fourth studio album, is both a commercial and critical smash. It's
sold over two million copies and has every review writer struggling to
outdo the praise showered by all those who superpraised Kendrick before
them. Pitchfork's review calls Damn, "a widescreen
masterpiece of rap, full of expensive beats, furious rhymes, and
peerless storytelling about Kendrick's destiny in America." Lamar's
vision for Damn meant asking his producers, "'What can we do to make it live in another space and be ourselves, but also challenge ourselves?' As
far as the sonics of the album, we wanted to make it where it was
really back to the future, something you've never heard before, but
something you've heard before. If that makes sense." At this point the
hip-hop universe seems to be unanimous in its belief that the greatest
MC in the world right now is Kendrick Lamar. He could win a battle
against most underground MCs and he could outsell most pop rappers. He
is the undisputed current king of hip-hop.
Kendrick
lives a life that befits the king of hip-hop, if you think what truly
befits the king of hip-hop is to basically live in the studio looking
for the perfect beat and the ultimate rhyme. "I can sometimes cut the
whole world off to write a verse that is perfect to me," he says. "I
could be in the studio all day and turn the phone off and completely
zone out, because I feel like this was what I was chosen to do. And I
can't let anyone get in between that." Unlike many MCs, when Kendrick
creates, he's not high. "I want to make the music in the most sober mind
as possible, that way I know it's me making it, not just the liquor!"
If hip-hop is a game, Kendrick wants to win. "Hip-hop plays two ways in
my head. It plays as a contact sport, and also as something that you
connect to – songwriting. Growing up and listening to battles between
Nas and Jay-Z, that's the sport for me. That's where it can get funky,
that's where I can say whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want.
Then there's the other side, which is showing something that people can
actually relate to, and connect with. I have that competitive nature,
and I also have the compassion to talk about something that's real."
"Hip-hop
plays two ways in my head. It plays as a contact sport, and also as
something that you connect to – songwriting. Growing up and listening to
battles between Nas and Jay-Z, that's the sport for me."
Asked if he's written the perfect rhyme yet, Kendrick decides the album's 12th song, Fear,
contains the best verses he's ever written. "It's completely honest,"
he says. "The first verse is everything that I feared from the time that
I was seven years old. The second verse I was 17, in the third it's
everything I feared when I was 27. These verses are completely honest."
He got to that honesty through years of work with a studio family that
helped keep the king humble. "Everything you write is not dope," he
says. "Even if you're a great writer, a bunch of the stuff you write is
wack. But most people don't have somebody around to be like, 'That's
wack.'" Kendrick has friends who are empowered to tell him what's not
working and he says that has made a huge difference. "I've been in that
studio writing terrible verses, writing terrible hooks, with homeboys
and friends and people that you trust telling you, 'That's garbage.' I
grew thick skin and got back in there and did it all over again. And
then you eventually grow an ability to know when something is too far. I
learned how to challenge myself to take it to the next level."
But
for Kendrick to reach his throne he's had to do much more than learn
how to rhyme. He grew up in Compton, California, a rough place that has
sucked up many souls, a place where gangs, killers, and dead bodies
littered Rosecrans Avenue, where he lived until relatively recently.
Music wasn't just an outlet, he needed it to save his spirit. He grew up
obsessed with Snoop, Dre, Pac, Public Enemy, KRS-One, Rakim, Jay-Z, and
Kanye, as well as Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Prince, Marvin Gaye,
the Isley Brothers, Luther Vandross, and Malcolm X. "His ideas rooted my
approach to music," he says. Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X
as a teenager contributed to shaping Kendrick as an artist. "That was
the first idea that inspired how I was going to approach my music. From
the simple idea of wanting to better myself by being in this mind-state,
[the] same way Malcolm was." Without music to give him purpose, he
might have grown lost. "We used to have these successful people come
around and tell us what's good and what's bad in the world, but from our
perspective it didn't mean shit to us, because you're telling us all
these positive things but when we walk outside and see somebody's head
get blown off, whatever you just said went out the window. And it just
chips away at the confidence. It makes you feel belittled in the world.
The more violence you're exposed to as a kid, the more it chips away at
you. For the most part, the kids that I was around, it broke them. It
broke them to say, 'Fuck everything, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do to
survive.'" How did Kendrick escape falling into that? "Before I let it
chip away at me 100%, I was making my transition into music."
Later
that night, at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, Lamar comes up from under
the floor to a screaming, sold out crowd. He's wearing a yellow
tracksuit with black trim, recalling Bruce Lee in Game of Death,
and he commands the stage, working alone for most of the show and
dominating the arena. His small body exudes power as he moves about the
stage. Like Rakim and Nas before him, he doesn't dance and he's as
serious as a heart attack. The crowd can't take their eyes off of him.
In between songs, Lamar is on the big screen in clips from The Legend of Kung Fu Kenny,
a little film he made, inspired by 70s kung fu flicks. In it, Lamar
gets to look like he's in a kung fu movie, but this is not costume play,
it gets at the core of who he is. In those movies there was often an
obsession with acquiring skill and showing off mastery and an internal
battle to excel. That's who Kendrick is as an artist – he's focused on
polishing his skills and displaying his mastery and pushing himself to
greatness. Asked about his favorite words, besides "perspective" Lamar
says, "discipline." "I love that word," he says, "because it shows who
you really are. There are so many vices in the world, especially being
in the entertainment business. You're exposed to so much at any given
time. Whatever you need is right there in your face. But how much
discipline do you have when the camera's off, when the light's off? That
inspires me. How to restrain that. And that shows who you really are.
To control yourself, that is the ultimate power."
Kendrick
is learning more and more about how to control himself, partly through
daily meditation sessions each morning. "I need 30 minutes a day of just
reflecting on the moment," he says. "When you're in this business,
everything is," he snaps his fingers. "Years go by so quick, because
you're working and you're also planning for more work within the next
six months to a year. So for me, I just have to sit down and reflect on
what's going on in these 30 minutes." His meditation practice helps him
gain perspective, which he says is his, "number one favorite word".
"I'm
a human being, I'm a person, I have family, I have my own personal
problems. But I have to give to the world. That's my responsibility.
It's not just a job or entertainment for me; this is what I have to
offer to the world."
As
well as his impact on global pop culture, Kendrick's local community is
also benefitting from his success; he has helped dozens of his peers
find jobs that aren't just "making money" but "earning a living". "You
put YMCAs inside your community and you give a job to these cats that
can't be hired anywhere else. You make the opportunities, and that's
what I'm doing personally. Because once I put the power in their hands,
they can put it in the next. People can't believe that it can change
that way. But it has to start with one." Dr. Dre and Venus and Serena
Williams are also active in the city of Compton, while its female mayor,
35-year-old Aja Brown, is effecting real change. "This generation has
opportunities that my generation didn't have," he notes, adding that to
be present in these communities holds true power. It's not enough to
merely donate or write powerful songs or tweet messages of positivity;
you must show and prove. "There's a lot of people that are scared of
their own people, the gang culture that is still there, but you can't be
scared. You gotta be there, because it shows confidence not only in
yourself but in those in the neighbourhood. People want a reason to hate
you. Don't give them that reason. What's going on now is that
transformation of us not being scared of where we come from. And that
idea is gonna get passed on."
Lots of people want change but how
does true structural revolution happen? Is " Alright" just a song or is
there something more behind it? Lamar promises that we gonna be alright,
but how? How do we get to actually being alright in such a crazy
nation? "I always go back to the community," Lamar says. "Simple as
that. Because I see these kids growing up without a father and they
don't have this confidence of knowing that they're better than the
environment that they're in. So getting to alright is just installing
confidence in them. To let them know that I come from where you come
from, and you can ultimately make a change." Kendrick Lamar knows that
he is an artist who has the power to change the world and he's working
on trying to do just that. "When I'm gone," he says, "I can rest
peacefully knowing that I contributed to the evolution of this right
here, the mind."
Credits
Text Touré Photography Craig McDean Fashion Director Alastair McKimm
Grooming Francelle Daly at Art and Commerce. Photography assistance
Nick Brinley and Maru Teppei. Digital technician Nick Ong. Styling
assistance Sydney Rose Thomas and Madeleine Jones. Grooming assistance
Ryo Yamazaki. Production Gracey Connelly and Dyonne Wasserman.
Kendrick wears all clothing Prada.
THE MUSIC OF KENDRICK LAMAR: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH KENDRICK LAMAR:
Kofi Natambu, editor of and contributor to Sound Projections, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He has written extensively about music as a critic and historian for many publications, including the Black Scholar, Downbeat, Solid Ground: A New World Journal, Detroit Metro Times, KONCH, the Panopticon Review,Black Renaissance Noire, the Village Voice, the City Sun (NYC), the Poetry Project Newsletter (NYC), and the African American Review. He is the author of a biography Malcolm X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: The Melody Never Stops (Past Tents Press) and Intervals (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of Solid Ground: A New World Journal, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology Nostalgia for the Present (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
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