Kendrick Lamar — the rap impresario — rhymes about the temptations, social struggles, disharmony and the heartbeat of his hometown in Compton, California. Still Kendrick Lamar — the man — remains selective with words.
After personally getting signed by Dr. Dre to Aftermath/Interscope Records in March, Lamar has covertly risen from the L.A. streets, keeping every hip-hop blogger, fan and fellow artist salivating for his work, yet mostly staying elusive to the buzz. Recently, admirers got early word that the entertainer’s debut album would arrive in October, a statement he supposedly made during his PowerHouse performance on June 23. By the next day, everyone from MTV to college disc jockeys was broadcasting the news.
They were soon interrupted, however, because if Lamar stresses anything, it’s attention to detail. “Let me personally announce the album date and “CORRECT” title,” he clarified on his Twitter page. “Then it’s official.” Three days later, he did, and the countdown to Good Kid, M.A.A.d City began, the release now confirmed for October 2.
Don’t expect many more details about the work out of the 25-year-old emcee. Lamar prefers to let his audience speculate, to formulate their own ideas, thoughts and opinions, so he can later break them down and renovate them. “I just wanted to make it right,” Lamar tells theGrio. “I didn’t really want to put it out there and say exactly what it meant. I wanted ya’ll to get the album and figure it out. That’s the catch.” While the rapper does admit he’s not the “good kid” in question, otherwise, he reveals little about the meaning or context of his much-anticipated LP. He describes the sound as like “nothing from the last ten years,” and despite his famous musical connections, he’s kept his production unit tight, working with producers Soundwave, Willie B, Tae Beast, and Dave Free, the same crew from his 2011 independent release, Section.80.
“The sound is really just all in-house,” he explains. “I kept everything real locked in with the people that rhyme with me, and perfected myself. It will be nothing like my tapes, as far as theme and concept, but as far as the sound, it will be on the scale.” Industry tastemakers and fans have likened Lamar’s artistic flair to the golden era of hip hop, those ‘90s days of yore when rap masters like 2Pac, N.W.A., A Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang Clan reigned supreme with their insightful lyrics, deconstructionist technique, and groundbreaking creative curves. It was a decade when hip hop couldn’t be predicted, when wit challenged provocation, and the industry was dominated by guys whose music was often too hard for the radio.
As a West Coast kid growing up during that time, Lamar watched from his little boy’s shoes, and still holds artists like Pac in highest regard. Nevertheless, the emerging artist insists his personal prerogative doesn’t have a prototype, nor does he attempt to mimic the legends. “That’s nothing that I do consciously,” he comments. “That’s just a flavor that I throw in the game every now and then, you know? I can’t say that my whole career’s gonna be branched on that one quality of sound because I’m not classified in that particular thing. My whole thing is just to feel it – If I’m feeling, I do it.”
And no one — not even his iconic leader — has countered his stance. “Dre allowed me to do just that, you know, go out there and create my album because he has that much respect, belief and faith in me,” Lamar says about Dre’s influence on his project. “I don’t feel pressure. This is the same music I’ve been doing for years, everybody just catching up now. So, the world is late.”
Late and restless.
Like Dre, Lamar grew up in L.A.’s toughest district, though he remains relatively unscathed from his childhood. His parents moved to Compton from Chicago before the emcee was born, and true to many in South Central, poverty became the biggest hurdle for his family. Nevertheless, the rapper did well in school, and found inspiration in the alternatives around him. In fact, as a boy, the emcee was fortunate enough to observe 2Pac in action on the music video set of “California Love” with Dre.
“When I was a kid, they was in Compton,” Lamar remembers. “I lived in Compton most of my life, so when you live in that neck of the woods, we gotta come out. My pops, he seen it, picked me up, and we was out there.” The influence from that day and from Pac’s work still resonates for Lamar, who says the late rapper’s legacy pushes him to be an “innovator.”
“His music you know, it speaks for itself, and [now] I can say what I wanna say on records just because he did it the best…I wanna continue that,” Lamar observes, adding that his plans are consistent. “Basically be myself, and get inspired by what inspires me, which is life and family, you know? And not be stuck into the stereotypical things and be confined by that.”
So far, the strategy has proven potent, taking the young artist from a life of steady struggle to red carpets, world traveling and incessant press demands making him an enigma before he’s even put out a major label work.
Plus, his friends came on board for the ride. Along with Lamar, Dre also signed the rapper’s collective, Black Hippy, to the label, a crew of unabashed, beat-centric rappers featuring himself, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and Jay Rock. It’s a feat Lamar believes stems from originality alone. “Our music spoke for itself, it wasn’t like nothing [Dre] had heard at the actual time, and that’s how we’re going to continue to do it,” he says, though no definite date has been set for a group collaborative album. “Right now, we just want to snap every individual artist and get them off the ground first. We want to make it the right timing when we feel everybody really wants it, and needs it.”
The rapper’s confidence and pride fall in tangent with his humility, and as a character in music, he recognizes the strength of his alliances. With everyone from legends to wishful thinkers looking towards him for encouragement, he can’t help but feel pretty damn good.“These people I looked up to – individuals, people I studied – they all recognize that I’m a student of the game and that’s the best feeling in the world,” Lamar remarks. “It allows me to keep going.”
Follow Courtney Garcia on Twitter at @courtgarcia