115. Kendrick Lamar, "good kid, m.A.A.d city"

 


This album, Kendrick's major label debut, is such a fascinating contrast with Kanye's Late Registration that we saw a couple of days ago.  Kanye's is all bombast and big, sprawling sounds, while this album is moody and introspective.  The beats here are subdued and downbeat, completely unlike the lush, orchestral sweep of Registration.  Kendrick's all Nick Drake to Kanye's Queen.

This record is loosely structured as a concept album about a day in the life of a kid in Compton, trying to make it as an artist in one of the roughest places in the country.  It is dark and personal and introspective to a degree that starts to feel uncomfortable.  This album is all about Kendrick's voice and his rhymes and his life and it is an intense record.

"good kid," track seven, is a good example.  Built on a sample from "We Live in Brooklyn, Baby" by Roy Ayres Ubiquity and with a hook sung by Pharrell Williams, Kendrick raps about how hard it is to stay straight and how the cops see everyone the same, straight or not:

All I see is strobe lights, blindin' me in my hindsight
Findin' me by myself, promise me you can help
In all honesty I got time to be copacetic until
You had finally made decision to hold me against my will
It was like a head-on collision that folded me standing still
I can never pick out the difference and grade a cop on the bill
Every time you clock in the morning, I feel you just want to kill
All my innocence while ignorin' my purpose to persevere
As a better person; I know you heard this and probably in fear
But what am I 'posed to do when the blinkin' of red and blue
Flash from the top of your roof and your dog has to say woof

The verses on this album, as you can see, are so tight and intricately woven that I had to have the lyrics open as I listened just to have a shot at keeping up.  

Lots of rappers sing about poppin bottles, but "Swimming Pools (Drank)" is about the other side of that, about changing from a partyer to a drunk.  It's an eyes open look at how insidious alcohol can be:

Now I done grew up round some people livin' their life in bottles
Granddaddy had the golden flask, backstroke every day in Chicago
Some people like the way it feel, some people wanna kill their sorrow
Some people wanna fit in with the popular, that was my problem
I was in a dark room, loud tunes, lookin' to make a vow soon
That I'ma get fucked up, fillin' up my cup I see the crowd mood

The next song, "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst," a 12-minute, two-part opus, finds Kendrick adopting different personas to tell their stories, with the heartbreaking wish that they just be remembered, even if they didn't live their best or highest life.

Kendrick has had a fascinating career path.  He released his first mixtape in 2003, at 16 years old, and since then, in the space of less than 20 years, has become maybe the most highly regarded rapper alive.  The 14 Grammys are good, but he's also won a Pulitzer for music (for 2017's Damn).  

Is this album in my personal Top 500? I think it's an incredible album, but if I'm being totally honest, probably not.

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