Carson Rohde

Dr. Sean Nye

Hip Hop History
November 22, 2015
Good Kid M.A.A.D. City

The major label debut album, good kid m.A.A.D. city, by Kendrick Lamar serves
as a hugely successful transition album for Kendricks career, hip hop music, and black
music and culture as whole. Kendrick plays out the album as if it is an autobiographical
film, even sub-titling the album as A Short Film by Kendrick Lamar. Multiple
characters, personalities and versions of himself at different ages are played out by his
several different vocal tones. Kendrick separates himself from the events of his life but
also confides in his inescapable life he was born into. He shares the Compton gang
lifestyle as a conscientious observer, affected by his surroundings, but never giving up
his peaceful, innocent core.
The tracks cover multiple directions of influence on his life, from the opening of a
Christian sermon, to his parents arguments and inspiration- mostly shared as voice mail
tape machine messages, peer pressure from his friends and Compton gang culture,
and his familys gang and drug activity, directly and intimately shown on the cover of the

album. His uncles and grandfather are pictured on the cover, eyes blacked-out, with a
40oz beer bottle and baby bottle on the table, his grandfather holding him flashing a
Crips gang sign, with a poster of his father above Kendrick, seeming unaware of the life
surrounding him at that age. His early teenage love interests, early drug experiences,
especially with cocaine/pcp laced marijuana as a teen, and the visions and preachings
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are spoken of and shared across the
albums arc. West Coast, East Cost, and Atlanta hip hop sounds, pop driven rap,
gagster rap, and conscious rap styles all come together to melt into a new but familiarly
classic production, a hugely successful crossover mission. Within weeks of the albums
release in late 2012, nearly everyone in my typical conservative American suburb of
Gilbert, Arizona, knew of Kendrick Lamar and sang aloud the singles. I wasnt a fan of
him at the time, but it was very difficult not to hear of him and his huge singles out in the
world at parties and in stores. It shows how quickly and widely he exploded in popularity
from hometown of Compton in his early 20s. His influences experiences are directly
mentioned and melted into one collective work, new sound and reminiscent. The album
plays as a full length concept album, with many non traditional song structures in terms
of radio and pop, with interludes and skits in the middle of and book-ending in between
tracks, like scenes of a movie or play. Grooves may also change completely as if
separate songs within a single song, as in the 12-minute track Sing About Me Im Dying

of Thirst. The tracks sonically accumulate new and old, contemporary electronic
production and classic instrumental reminiscent of 70s R&B.
Kendricks constant collaborations with artists of many different camps of hip hop
and music push the working together of opposite forces, like the unity of warring gangs,
as in the pioneering vision of Africa Bambaataa. A great example if the massive hit
Bitch Dont Kill My Vibe, which features Drake on a verse. In my view, Drake comes
from the complete opposite direction of hip hop, with different styles, motivational forces,
messages, audiences, and attitude. Drake captures the essence of the massively
popular pop rapper with auto-tune, over-produced, general vague lyrics of partying, girls,
money, lifestyle, fame, and mostly driven by those same material items. Drake is also
heavily driven by record label agendas, ghostwriters, and managers and producers
visions for him, more of a typical pop star as a pawn or puppet for a much larger goal.
Kendrick is known for writing his own lyrics, keeping his artistic vision as the track for the
music other producers make for him, especially for this concept album as not many of
the songs are structured and organized as typical radio pop songs, as a Drake album
would be, just a collection of songs. Though one can notice the influence the have each
other, as they both pick up on similar character tones and vocal fluctuations. The two
both stand at the top of the Hip Hop game of the current younger generation, both now
going even deeper into their own camps, Kendrick going spiritually, philosophically, and

politically conscious, and Drake singing about cell phones, partying at the club on a
tuesday, and running through the 6, a possible reference to rumored dark satanic
themes scattered among his new album, If You are Reading This, Its Too Late. Bitch
Dont Kill My Vibe was actually written originally as a collaboration between Lady Gaga
and Kendrick called Partynauceous, planned for a single release, but never came due
to creative differences between the two. Gaga, however, did end up releasing the track
shortly after the albums release, with Lamar complimenting her personal strength on
their work. The track also features a sample of Janet Jackson singing any time from
Any Time, Any Place from the movie of the same name Poetic Justice, featuring Janet,
Tupac Shakur, and Maya Angelou. Hip Hop champion-king features of Dr. Dre and Jay-Z
only further cement the accomplishment and relevance of Kendrick Lamar as the new
golden voice. Though, the two appearances( on Compton-Dre and Bitch Dont Kill My
Vibe-Remix-by Young Guru-ft. Jay-Z) by either rappers seems a bit disconnected to
Kendrick and this new wave of hip hop, like a forced connection, despite their influence
of Kendrick, and the attention the features can attract. Dr. Dre actually serves as
executive producer of the album, re-instating his musical and home-town Compton
relevance for a new generation, pulling him from his recent corporate career image with
Beats Music.

Samples from artists such as Beach House, Janet Jackson, Bill Withers, Ohio
Players, Al Green, and Ice Cube appear on the album, playing a slightly different role in
the tracks composition and mix than samples had in early 70s 80 and 90s hip hop.
These samples are impressively integrated and layered into the tracks. Money Trees
though is heavily driven by a sample of Silver Soul by Beach house, which in fact
drives the core for nearly the whole song, a much more obvious sample-reliant song. It
also features fellow TDE rapper Jay Rock. This sample invites a whole other culture
and world of youth to melt together, from white indie rock hipster hippies with black hip
hop heads. Though most white kids today do listen to rap and black music for the
majority, quite different than any other time in history, especially before and during the
60s-80s.
Kendrick collects it all together, throwing in boistering rap cliches right alongside
innocent humble remarks that open up his true self that has stayed inside of him, the
original good kid that remained amidst his upbringing. The big picture theme and
message of the album is that you can be whoever you truly are, despite your
upbringings, the tragedies you have experienced, the influences you have come across,
whether good or bad. You can always be yourself, and you have your own view of life
and the world naturally and no person, object, experience can take that away from you.
Unless you are driven to altering yourself in pursuit of riches and materials, as Kendrick

often disses in references to the majority of the recent hip hop community. Now with
2015s To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick has sky-rocketed into fame, artistic, social, and
political power, and even merged jazz, funk, and hip hop like never before, now one of
the biggest names in the music industry today.