In my opinion there is no genre that is going through more innovation in a short amount of time today than hip-hop. Whether that is the speed of production, the ease of distribution or the eagerness of younger artists to experiment, hip-hop has gone through more stylistic trends in the last ten years than pretty much any of its rock, heavy metal or even electronic contemporaries. And as a result of this speed, the hip-hop community has been going through a trend of feeling the need to label everything of a high quality of the last five years a classic album. I get a classic! You get a classic! Everybody gets a goddamn classic!
This is not something I see myself doing and a lot of that is down to no benefit of hindsight. There are albums I love that I don’t feel comfortable giving that label too (Run the Jewels 2, Danny’s Brown’s XXX, The Money Store depending on your definitions). Your mileage may vary, but there are two hip-hop albums in the last five years that I am completely comfortable giving that classic label to: the first is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which we will be talking about next week. The second is this one, Good Kid M.A.A.D City. And both have the same common reasons for their status beyond any noticeable influence, that being a unified vision and the ultimate demonstration of that artist’s craft at that particular moment (Though let’s just say that my writings tomorrow will be a struggle on whether I can already call a third).
With the small success of Section.80 and the attention of one Dr. Dre, Kendrick and his production team Digi+Phonics (among others) found themselves in studios of Aftermath and Interscope. And the shift into mainstream attention came a seeming pressure for Kendrick to mould himself into the climate of mainstream hip-hop at the time. It is definitely a common story: up-and-coming rapper gets backing of large production label, and though studio pressure and the search for fame and money give up their previous morals in the pursuit of a wider audience. But although Kendrick’s style has definitely changed in the span of year, this embrace of modern production styles was treat less like a compromise and more of a challenge; if he was going to make trendier music, he was going to do it on his own terms.
Good Kid, M.A.A.D City comes with the subtitle A Short Film By Kendrick Lamar, and the music and narrative of the album definitely lives up to that description. If Section.80 was the independent feature shot on DSLR cameras, then this album is the full panoramic experience. The music ranges from both spacious and dreamy sampling to bass heavy bangers to suspenseful west coast hip-hop, all depending on the scene in question. Section.80 may have been experimenting with narrative more like a novel or a series of short stories, but with a sound ranging from And with the blending of different style from Aquemini-era OutKast to modern style trap music Good Kid, M.A.A.D City certainly feels like a cinematic story.
That story, told non-sequentially, is that of a young Kendrick Lamar – or possibly any young boy in the streets of Compton – caught between family, friends and gang violence, trying to escape from the bad influences around him and being continuously pulled back through circumstance (thus the title). Kendrick tells this story with his usual flair for complex rhymes and flow, but in turn plays with characters and different accents to complement certain styles, all helping to paint the story of this story and its inhabitants in a much more vivid manner. Each song is enjoyable on the base level, but in this order and with the addition of skits essential to the experience (rare indeed), each part gains an extra amount of pathos and understanding, even those that might seem silly on the surface. Even the guest spots – like the compulsory 2012 Drake feature – are all placed appropriately throughout the album to add context and perspective, playing on the strengths of artists ranging from Kendrick’s contemporaries to established artists like Dr. Dre and MC Eiht that influenced the album from the outset.
The cinematic scope of the album’s sound can be heard from the first notes “Sherane A.K.A Master Splinters Daughter”. The TMNT reference was made before on “The Heart Pt.2”, but here refers to Sherane’s father as a hoodrat, with a group of children who are in different gang colours (and I also suspect was meant to come before or after “Cartoon and Cereal”, the leaked track from this album). And with that Kendrick narrates in a quiet, suspenseful tone about his 17 year old self in his mother’s van with Sherane and sex on his mind, all set to a bass line that I can only describe as completely filthy. This introduction, set in the middle of the narrative, is the perfect to set the mood for the story ahead, and also contrasts with the opening prayers of “My lord, I come you a sinner” that we will eventually come back to in a thematically appropriate way. And of course, where the fuck is that man’s dominoes? You’re killing his vibe, man!
With that we have “Bitch, Don’t Kill my Vibe”, which connects to the story in that respect – and also for having the prayers in the chorus – but is really the only song aside from “Compton” that is not connected to the main narrative (though I could happily hear an argument saying otherwise). Though with the parental phone call of “Sherane” and the main calls of “Bitch, don’t kill My Vibe”, there is kind of an underlining sense of disconnect in both. Through a calm guitar sample from “Tiden Flyver”, the drums and other instrumentation builds upon that as Kendrick discusses his own career and being detached from those who are only friends with him for his fame, or ones who lack substance. We’ve seen him cover this topic before in “Cut ‘Em Off”, but this is the most complex, most luxurious and definitive version of that song. And those final violins are magical.
Sherane A.K.A Master Splinters Daughter: “I was in heat like a cactus, my tactics of being thirsty/Probably could hurt me, but fuck it I got some heart/Grab my momma’s keys, hopped in the car, then oh boy”
Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe: “Look inside of my soul and you can find gold and maybe get rich/Look inside of your soul and you can find out it never exist”
So after two songs that move around in time and association with the story, we come to the chronological start to the story, and if the album had started with “Backseat Freestyle”, there would definitely be different expectation for the rest of the music ahead. Because it is a braggadocio, banger beat that is completely immature and perfectly suited to the character that Kendrick is playing. It channels old school Eminem in attitude, speed and pop culture references, and the beat has a percussion that feels like they are banging upon the car that Kendrick and his posse is “freestyling” in. It is the carefree start before the falls to come, and I freely admit that the OJ Simpson line makes me laugh every time.
We think this laidback, chilling-with-friends attitude is going to continue with the first beat to “The Art of Peer Pressure”, with the relaxing g-funk beat playing as Kendrick talks about smoking marijuana and how “he’s with the homies right now”. But, as though the track is snapping back to reality, Kendrick employs one of his iconic beat changes and the feel of song changes completely. It is a suspenseful, electronic led sound in which Kendrick spits out an evocative story of him and his gang doing drugs, robbing places and almost getting caught by the police. But Kendrick never sounds happy to do be doing these things; as the title indicates, and every final line of each verse emphasises, his change of behaviour and the change of atmposphere (highlighted by said music change) is down to a gang mentality, and desire to fit in “with the homies”.
Backseat Freestyle: “I look like OJ, killing everything from pussy to a mothafuckin’ Hit-Boy beat/She pussy popping and I got options like an audible, I be/C-O-M-P-T-O-N, I win, then ball at your defeat/C-O-M-P-T-O-N, my city, mobbing in the street, yelling”
The Art of Peer Pressure: “I never was a gangbanger, I mean I was never stranger to the folk neither/I really doubt it/Rush a nigga quick and then we laugh about it/That’s ironic ‘cause I’ve never been violent, until I’m with the homies”
The next, “Money Trees”, seems to recaps and expand on events that we know occur, but in the middle of dreamy beat that feels both more carefree and more contemplative. That beat is built from a sample from “Silver Soul” by the great Beach House, and with the misty atmosphere and chirping birds is the daytime to the night time of “The Art of Peer Pressure”. Through a rhythm that finally sees Kendrick optimise the laidback tone with something contemplative, also covering the death of his Uncle and everyone’s own respective ways to get through life through the immortal “It go Halle Berry or hallelujah/Pick your poison, tell me what you doing”. And although Kendrick is great, Jay Rock’s guest flow on this song is the perfect counterpoint, rugged and fast, as though he is one of Kendrick’s gang friends with “Dreams of…getting shaded under a money tree”.
“Poetic Justice” keeps a dreamy tone with the Janet Jackson sample, and goes back to the story of Kendrick’s relationship with Sherane. In many ways it is also an analogue to “Backseat Freestyle” as they both tracks that take on a carefree atmosphere and are about the power of song and language (in different ways of course). This also is the song with the aforementioned Drake, and this song is perfectly suited to his R&B sensibilities. He never shows up Kendrick, but his verse is fitted to the tone of Kendrick/Sherane whilst still talking about his own troubles (again, like he’s Kendrick’s friends in the same predictable, and I prefer this version of Drake than his “Imma fuck your bitch, but baby I love you” persona. Although with the return of the darker “Sherane” beat, we then realise that this is in reality an ambush of Kendrick by her gangland brothers, and the road ahead will be much more intense.
Money Trees: “Back to reality, we poor, ya bish/Another casualty of war, ya bish/Two bullets in my Uncle Tony head/He said one day I’ll be on tour, ya bish/That Louis Burger never be the same/A Louis belt will never ease that pain”
Poetic Justice: “Every time I write these words, they become a taboo/Making sure my punctuation curve, every letter here’s true/Living my life in the margin and that metaphor was proof”
MVP of 2013 Pharrell Williams produces the beat for the first half of the narrative makes the title, “good kid”, and with his voice, the “Mass Hallucination” hook (also a comment on the effect of the environment on the people in it), and the woodwind instrumentation manages to contrast both the calmer tones of the previous two songs and the subject at hand. That subject is the gang rivalry between the Bloods and the Crips in the streets of Compton (“what am I ‘posed to do when the topic is Red or Blue”), and Kendrick matches this contrast feeling in his flow which fluctuates between his normal inflection and a tone that sounds a lot more worried.
The next song also deals with contrast, but a more obvious way. That is the second part of this narrative, “M.A.A.D City,” (which is revealed here to have one meaning of “Me an Angel on Angel Dust”) produced by Digi-Phonics and Terrence Martin respectively. The first section is a string led beat that manages to balance the line between gritty and cinematic, as Kendrick takes us on “a trip down memory lane” as he talks about how gang culture killed both his cousin and his uncle. There’s another death of course, one that we are not allowed to know about and in a rare instance of (what sounds like) “artist censorship” bleeps the name of that he suspects to have done it. The beat then switches to Terrence Martin’s beat, and Kendrick Lamar changes his voice to a pubescent younger self to follow this change of narrative. Not only does the change move into something even grittier with the guitar lines, but Kendrick’s young voice contrasts beautifully with the older voice of MC Eiht, whose admittance to be unable to truly “leave” the gang culture is the extension of Kendrick’s own ability to get out of the hood. Then there are Kendrick Lamar’s lines at end (see below), where he talks as close as he can to describing what the gang lifestyle has made him do…damn man.
good kid: “All I see in this room: 20’s, Xannies and these ‘shrooms/Grown-up candy for pain, can we live in a sane society/It’s entirely stressful upon my brain”
M.A.A.D City: “If I told you I killed a nigga at 16, would you believe me?/Or see me to be innocent Kendrick you seen in the street/With a basketball and some Now and Laters to eat/If I mentioned all of my skeletons, would you jump in the seat?”
Almost as a moment of ease between the previous track and what is to come, Kendrick returns to his friends at a party for what is probably Kendrick Lamar’s most popular song to date, “Swimming Pools (Drank)”. Of course that is a misnomer, as although the trap beat is ready to be played at the club, it is also very clearly a song about alcoholism and a culture that glorifies it. The Swimming Pool in question acts as both a good representation of the sheer amount of alcohol around him, and how the culture of drink is so big he almost drowns in it. It’s the definition of subversive, though in a very club-friendly way that I’ve seen people take shots to in the chorus. The album version, though, has an extra verse, one where the ideas of alcohol shots and bullet shots becomes more obvious, as the end skit sees Kendrick’s friends attempt to retaliate for Kendrick’s previous troubles and, as a result, one of them is shot dead.
This moves into what is the emotional centrepiece of the entire album, and my current contender for both best and favourite Kendrick Lamar song, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst”. Through a moody jazzy beat – which is more complex than you might expect – “Sing About Me” tells the story of two other people before moving back to himself. The first is of Dave’s Brother, who shows his appreciation for just how much Kendrick cared for his brother even in the moments before his death, and pleads for Kendrick to get out of this violent culture. That is just before he himself is killed mid-verse. The second narrative is a follow up to “Keisha’s Song (Her Pain”, where the sister of Keisha criticising Kendrick using her narrative without actually having met her, with lines about her own experiences in prostitution but how she refuses to be patronised or looked down for it. In this self critique, Kendrick also writes lines about how much his music is even helping; “You lying to these motherfuckers, talking about you can help ’em/With my story, you can help me if you sell this pussy for me, nigga”. Then the sister begins to fade away, along with the music, as it shows both her death and how the cycle of prostitution continues regardless. And the the third verse is Kendrick’s rebuttal – “a little too late” – is both trying to come up with some response to both his dead champions and dead critics, and how his music is his own escape from mortality. All of these stories end with the “sing about me” chorus, another ode to the power of music, and how it allows these people to live forever. Full disclosure, I am writing this with misty eyes.
The “Sing About Me” part is so amazing that it also makes you forget how great the “Dying of Thirst” section is too. Through another beat change to 808 sounding drums and ethereal female vocals, Kendrick shows just how tired he is of the lifestyle he is in. His flow is almost as breathless as if he was actually “tired of running”, and through this running he makes it back to the prayer from the start of the album, which now completely changes it context to show Kendrick and his gang attempt forgiveness and cleansing from the eyes of God from a woman whose voice has much gravitas (rumours say it is the late Maya Angelou, but I can’t really confirm it. It doesn’t even mean the end to the violence (as we will discuss in a moment), it’s mainly an attempt at some kind of redemption (“So hop in that water, and pray that it works”)
Swimming Pools: “Okay, now open your mind up and listen me, Kendrick/I am your conscience, if you do not hear me, then you will be history, Kendrick/I know that you’re nauseous right now and I’m hopin’ to lead you to victory, Kendrick”
Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst: The whole fucking thing.
This grand moment of realisation and contemplation is articulated in the climax and seeming conclusion to the story in “Real”. Although Anna Wise voice is beautiful and will be used to great effect and more prominence on his next album, I will concede that this is the weakest hook on the album; the sweetness can also be too saccharine on occasion. But its context as the cathartic release of what came prior more than makes up it, with tapes from Kendrick’s parent that turn them from comic relief to some sign of salvation of forgiveness, who also talk about Top Dawg Entertainment (Kendrick’s label and way of escape), give advice like “anybody can kill a man, that don’t make you a real nigga. Real is responsibility”. Kendrick’s meditative verse is also great, saying the quote that might encapsulate his whole philosophy of music: “But what love got to do with it when you don’t love yourself?”
The final song of the album, “Compton”, is commonly referred to as the song that plays over the credits to this short film, and I don’t disagree. It is the victorious anthem after all the death and heartbreak of the rest of the album, with a beat that combines G-Funk, the cinematic qualities of Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and electronic elements sound like sirens. It is a letter to the city in which Kendrick lives, so it certainly makes sense to get some verses from probably the single most successful Compton resident, and executive producer, Dr. Dre. This would definitely give us a glimpse of what he was going to do for his own album in so many years; Compton: A Soundtrack. But although this seems like the end, the last lines of the skit seems to say otherwise, as Kendrick calls his mum to tell her he will bring take the van and bring it back in fifteen minutes, the lines he also said for when he was borrowing the van in the beginning of “Sherane”. This makes this song both the Closing and Opening Credits, representing the circular nature of the Compton lifestyle and how it might even be inescapable. Also the three bonus tracks on my copy total up to fifteen minutes, which I presume is just a coincidence because otherwise my head will explode.
Real: “A scapegoat cause plan A don’t come free/And plan C just an excuse like “because”/Or the word “but,” but what if I got love?”
Compton: “America target our rap market, it’s controversy and hate/Harsh realities we in made our music translate/To the coke dealers, the hood rich, and the broke niggas that play/With them gorillas that know killers that know where you stay”
Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is a dense narrative that pays off for all the promise shown on Section.80 with spades. It is the perfect mix of accessible and complex, showing a variety characters, situations and criticisms of both the gang life and Kendrick himself. Apt for a website devoted primarily to music, this is among the most cinematic albums ever created, with a narrative planning that beats even many movies that I have seen.
The question for Kendrick now of course was “What do I do now”? After a project a year it would be two and a half years before Kendrick Lamar would release a big scale project, but he must have been wondering: how do you follow up to one the most highly acclaimed and beloved albums of recent memory? Well, you beat it…
What did you think, though?
Kendrick Lamar Rankings
- Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
- Section.80
- (O)verly (D)edicated