October 22nd, 2012. The Giants beat the Cardinals. San Francisco was going insane. I was happy about my city's celebration, too happy to get into this Kendrick Lamar album "Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City." But after I calmed myself, I took myself into my bedroom, hit up rapgenius.com for the lyrics, & went through this audio journey.
The album takes you to the beginning of how the streets of Compton tried to poison Kendrick. From being betrayed by a potential love interest (Sherane a.k.a. Master Splinter's Daughter), to wanting to be a bad ass rapper making music about "that life" (Backseat Freestyle), to the way wanting to feel accepted can get a young mind caught up in trouble (The Art of Peer Pressure).
Later on in life, Kendrick sees beyond himself & ends up finding himself. In "Good Kid" he goes from the naive, resentful kid to an enlightened, angry young black man in "m.A.A.d. City."
When we accept a death (in this case, the death of a naive good kid), after we are over the denial & over the anger process, we try to cope. Some don't cope as well as they could, and this is when Kendrick gets heavily into drinking [Swimming Pools (Drank)]. In the extended version of "Swimming Pools," Kendrick gets into how we feel since we are meant to fail, we stay in the habits of failure (drugs + alcohol). Kendrick accepts it all, & knowing he's a martyr of the truth, a target of anti-black & brown empowerment establishments, he looks back at life in the simple days, looks back at his career before the blow up (Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst). In end of the second part of this hip hop epic, an elderly figure explains that the hood kids are thirsty, filled with sin, in need of being cleansed of their wicked actions; she tells on how they're dying of thirst & need water…holy water. This, to me, represents Kendrick's rebirth as a person, the start of his new life as a positive spirit. Looking back, he then tells us that if he could do ANYTHING with his music, it would be to help you be REALLY real & love yourself for who you truly are (Real). In the end of "Real," his mom encourages him to keep going in on the music game, to show the world how he came from a dark place & became the shining star he is now. No matter where he goes in life, he will NEVER forget Compton. In the song "Compton" (feat. Dr. Dre), they talk about how no matter what happens, they can never deny their city, it made them the ambitious men they (Dre & Kendrick) are today…anxious to make it to escape the wickedness of the city.
Over all, this conceptual album about Kendrick's story grammatically painted in a beautiful, & dangerous but deadly manner is something that deserves a Grammy. True genius that has been missing in the music scene for the longest time. Kendrick was always a good story teller, but he definitely carried the Canterbury Tale tradition of lyrical story telling with this one. It took a team to make this album what it is, and you can tell it was a labor of love dealt with tenderness.
I loved how he really played up the vocals, he brought a wide variety of tones & textures to his songs. If there's one thing I hate in an album, it's the same tone over & over. I like how he brought vocal styles from his older material into his new music; there were remnants of "Cartoon & Cerial," "The Heart Part 2," & even moments that mirrored his material off of the C4 mix tape when he was still K.Dot!
The album cover reads "Good Kid, m.A.A.d City: a short film by Kendrick Lamar," and he keeps true to that claim. This is a movie where you as the listener are responsible to create the imagery.
Though this song is not on the album, the Mad Angel on Angel Dust collaborated with fellow TDE label mates Ab-Soul & Jay Rock for "The Heart Part 3" which ties the whole album together on one track. He also tells us how he got where he is career wise, & where he is now. As a fan, or as he likes to say, family member who was there before the career blow up, I am SO proud of Kendrick. And shout out to Dee Ali for impeccable mixing & engineering work.
I did NOT let hip hop die on October 22nd.
