Kendrick Lamar

From Obama to the Grammys, via guest spots on the Late Shows all the way to the unexpected, historic Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first ever awarded to a musician outside classical and jazz. Kendrick Lamar is, in effect, the most acclaimed rapper in the world. At the very least, he's the definitive American hip-hop icon of the new millennium. His proverbial flow is able to win over pretty much everyone. His is a cadence that stands apart from the pack, instantly recognizable from the very first bar. His storytelling is often autobiographical while also being dense with criticism of contemporary society and recent US politics, though — and this needs to be stated clearly from the outset to avoid misunderstandings — it can also be misogynistic and at times ambiguous, particularly on hugely important issues like LGBT+ and women's rights, which he handles with a certain carelessness and one too many uses of the word bitch.

Lamar's narrative, on the whole, largely falls in line with the centuries-old uprising of the African-American community — a struggle that, when all is said and done, has never really ended and is still tragically ongoing.

But beyond the stories tackled on his records, Lamar is first and foremost a craftsman of rhyme. A wordsmith who's also a tailor of sorts, fusing in one stroke the complexity of Mos Def and the lessons of Tupac, with a constant melodic pursuit in which Dr. Dre initially plays a key role, alongside a host of producers who assist him behind the boards and in choosing beats and samples: the former unpredictable, the latter surgically precise, borrowed from every era imaginable. Just to give an idea, besides the aforementioned Dr. Dre, serving as executive producer, here's the list of producers featured on "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City", his second album: Anthony "TOPDAWG" Tiffith, Dawaun Parker, DJ Khalil, DJ Dahi, Hit-Boy, Jack Splash, Just Blaze, Like, Pharrell Williams, Rahki, Scoop DeVille, Skhye Hutch, Sounwave, T-Minus, Tabu, Terrace Martin, Tha Bizness, THC. Quite the team backing the Californian rapper through every verse. And that's not to mention the countless studio and live collaborations Lamar has built up over the years: U2, Rihanna, James Blake, Travis Scott, Future, Kanye West, Sza, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, just to name a few. In short, if there's one star that shines brighter than the rest in the vast hip-hop universe, it's definitely Kendrick Lamar.

To properly measure Lamar's arc, though, it's worth taking a big step back to the roots — well before, to be precise, his defining album, the record that channels his entire body of work, that 2015 "To Pimp a Butterfly", which enlists absolute giants of the contemporary Black music scene such as Flying Lotus and Thundercat, as well as untouchable masters of the past like George Clinton and Ronald Isley. The globally successful album finds its narrative and ideological peak in "King Kunta", the track in which Lamar tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an enslaved Black man who lived in Virginia in the eighteenth century, elevating him into a symbol of independence for repeatedly refusing to change his name and thus refusing to assimilate into a slaveholding society, even attempting to escape his chains four times before ultimately sacrificing his own leg to avoid castration as a final punishment ("Now I run the game got the whole world talkin', King Kunta/ Everybody wanna cut the legs off him, (King) Kunta/ Black man taking no losses/ Bitch where was you when I was walkin'/ Now I run the game, got the whole world talkin', King Kunta"); and especially well before the following "DAMN.", with which the Californian rapper reveals a first significant shift towards more intimate songwriting, notwithstanding the usual misogynistic missteps, as shown by certain lines on "DNA", where he calls out his subject as a "switch" — slang used to label someone as gay or effeminate — before branding him "sucker shit". Lines that are, frankly, avoidable and shameful, unlike the opening "BLOOD", a song in which he even has himself "killed" by an unexpected gunshot that goes off just as he approaches a blind woman in an attempt to help her look for something on the sidewalk. An unusual scenario, compounded by the words spoken to him just before his death: "Oh yes, you have lost something. You've lost… your life."

Indeed, because before he rallied the crowds with his distinctive edge, or before the poster-style covers depicting a row of men standing before the White House with the lifeless body of a judge at their feet, Lamar is, like the most genuine rappers, a victim of the ghetto. Specifically, the ghetto of Compton. Essentially one of the most dangerous on the West Coast and in the whole of the States.

Right. It's 2012, and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth is a 25-year-old grappling with a dream shared by millions of African Americans: becoming a successful rapper. He's a shy kid, but one who knows exactly what he's doing. He loves recounting above all the misdeeds that daily afflict his neighborhood, that day-after-day navigation through the depths of blocks that feel like trenches, always placing himself beyond mere bars and punchlines with brutal, anything-but-circumstantial memories. His love of jazz and deep passion for a certain strand of early-2000s soul — above all D'Angelo, but also Nas — and the movement rather loosely defined as conscious, which had firmly taken root in the City of Angels around the mid-Nineties, add a great deal to a style that's surgically precise down to the smallest detail, with flawless metrics.

Heart, first of all. That's what the young Lamar aims for on "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City", the project following the rougher "Section.80" from 2011, and one that hits the mark almost every single time. Subtitled "A Short Film By Kendrick Lamar", the record presents itself as a narrative concept in which the Californian rapper recalls one particular day of his life while driving around Compton in his mother Paula Oliver's minivan.

His broadsides underline conflicting feelings, love for the good things in his neighborhood and harsh condemnation for the far too many bad ones, like the murders, the police raids, the pointless gang wars. Kendrick raps about reckless gangs and saints he keeps believing in; he name-drops George Foreman ("The Art Of Peer Pressure") and admits to being a great sinner, wishing his feelings could remain intact all the same, addressing here and there with bold irreverence — or an excess of self-confidence mixed with implicit misogyny, you decide — his own "bitch", on "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe", a track originally recorded with Lady Gaga, later replaced by Anna Wise.

K-Dot, the nickname he's used since he was a kid, achieves his results without ever raising his voice too much; he stays right there, suspended between chic samples and lopsided grooves, jazzy shades and vaguely understated moods, as if trying to compress his own obsessions. This is clear from the very start on "Sherane A.K.A Master Splinter's Daughter", with its sly, laid-back gait, the bass slowly sliding through what remains a nocturnal, decadent atmosphere, before the tale of a sinful relationship takes flight, preceded moreover by an actual prayer:

Lord God, I come to you a sinner

And I humbly repent for my sins

I believe that Jesus is Lord

I believe that You raised him from the dead

I would ask that Jesus come to my life

And be my Lord and Savior

I receive Jesus to take control of my life

And that I may live for him from this day forth

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving me with your precious blood

In Jesus' name, amen

Recorded in just two takes, "Backseat Freestyle" shows instead the rawest side of the Compton rapper, now dealing with Maseratis, prostitutes, Matrix-style visions, dollars and all the usual trappings, in a clear homage to freestyle culture, which he would nonetheless never find all that fascinating.

You're never bored for a single moment. And between one rise in intensity and the next, a stop&go carefully placed at the center of the narrative, Lamar manages to combine ecstasy and suffering, resignation and surprise, dark rhythms and epic melodies, as on the unforgettable "The Art Of Peer Pressure", also made famous by the sample of "Helt Alene" by Danish group Suspekt. Fragments of "Silver Soul" by Beach House and "Big Ballin' Wit My Homies" by E-40 season instead "Money Trees", featuring Jay Rock, another high point of the record, its rhythm suspended over Eastern-tinged bars and lyrics that dredge up the memory of a robbery he once suffered.

It go Halle Berry or hallelujah

Pick your poison, tell me what you doin'

Everybody gon’ respect the shooter

But the one in front of the gun lives forever

(The one in front of the gun, forever)

And I been hustlin’ all day

This-a-way, that-a-way

Through canals and alleyways, just to say

Money trees is the perfect place for shade

And that’s just how I feel

Soulful cadences also mark the following "Poetic Justice", a duet with Drake, built on a looping sample of "Any Time, Any Place", a 1993 track by Janet Jackson. On "Good Kid" the dig into the past goes even further back. The melodic loop of "We Live in Brooklyn, Baby" by Roy Ayers Ubiquity is slotted in with class by his friend Pharrell. Meanwhile, on the other title track, "m.A.A.d city", the assault is head-on. And, surprisingly, snippets of B.B. King, the Five Stairsteps and "We Major" by Kanye West feat. Nas and Really Doe pop up.

The twelve minutes of the cinematic "Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst" ultimately leave their mark. In the background looms the anxiety of a young man on the verge of death and his wish to still be sung about after he's gone. Closing the circle of this first-person tale is a pastor's prayer, recited in unison by the neighborhood's brothers. The following "Real", once again featuring the excellent Anna Wise on the hook, carries the same quiet composure. His friend Dr. Dre finally guides Lamar through the propulsive opening of the closing "Compton", an unconditional tribute to his hometown, between Motown echoes and soft vocoder-voiced breaks.

"Good Kid, M.A.A.D City" (stylized as "good kid, m.A.A.d city") defines the specific weight of a giant of the global hip-hop scene. The most genuine manifesto of his career. A piece of storytelling that combines dismay and fascination, in the wake of the most vigorous tradition of L.A. hip-hop.

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02/01/2022