Review: Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City

Kendrick Lamar’s new album is many things.  Most classic albums are.

It’s a coming-of-age story, capturing a tumultuous time in a young man’s life.  It’s a commentary on life in general as it exists in Compton, a suburb of Los Angeles made famous by  many rappers over the years, but also a poor suburb beset by violence.

It’s a west coast Hip-Hop album, in both production (overseen by Compton’s greatest export Dr Dre), and in its reverence of the history of Californian rap (appearances by MC Eiht, references to Ice Cube lyrics).

It’s about the power of family to influence decisions and to ultimately save.  It’s about the temptations in the broader society that test those same familial bonds (drugs, alcohol, and peer pressure).

It's also great.

In trying to capture all of the above, Kendrick risks confusing his audience, but this never happens.

The narrative is clear and runs steadily over the course of album. 

At the outset, Kendrick illustrates his protagonist and his surroundings.  A giddy young kid is trying to get the girl, whilst trying to make sense of his world and impress his friends.  The laid-back groove of ‘Bitch, don’t kill my vibe’ hides the troubled thoughts of a pressured teen, while ‘backseat freestyle’, backed by booming beat from Hit-Boy, uses  teenage bravado to disguise fear of failure. 

Now that we know who we’re dealing with, the story sets sail. The intensity is quickly turned up on ‘The Art of Peer Pressure’ as Kendrick and friends get caught up in a shoot-out and car chase following a house robbery gone wrong.  The tension is palpable, and the scene is vividly rendered through lines like “They knew we weren't from round there, cause every time we down there we pull out the Boost Mobile Sim cards”.  The details are specific, emotive, and you feel every heavy breath.

‘Poetic Justice’ finds our protagonist back on safe ground, this time brimming with confidence and laying down his best lines on his ever present romantic interest ‘Sherane’.  The track takes a sample from the Janet Jackson track of the same name, and a verse from the ubiquitous Drake, and turns it into a summer smash.

Both ‘Good Kid’ and ‘m.A.A.d. city’ catch Kendrick in the crossfire of violence brought about by the decades-old feud between the Crips and Bloods.  It’s a part of the tapestry of the area and it’s a little unsettling as a fan of the early 90’s movie ‘Boyzin the Hood’ to realize that this feud is still an issue.  ‘m.A.A.d city’ also breaks down halfway into a industrious beat that would sit beautifully alongside Ice Cubes classic records, and allows west coast veteran MC Eiht to give some aged perspective to the contemporary violence.  It’s a nice touch.

Once we move past the day-to-day stress of the just-beneath-the-surface violence, Lamar finds that there are very few escapes made available to young poor men, and alcohol is one of the more prevalent (and acceptable) vices.  ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ is one of the best contemporary songs about the addictive nature of alcohol and its effects.  It also highlights how especially effective alcohol is as a tonic to the ever-present violence. 

The track leads directly into a consequence of that violence, the death of a sibling.

‘Sing about me, I’m dying of thirst’ finds Lamar looking at these consequences from not only his perspective, but also those of a prostitute and the recently deceased.  It’s delivered sincerely and self-effacingly over a gorgeously restrained track, accentuated by a sliding lead guitar and slight orchestral flushes.

The redemptive arc of the story is provided in ‘Real’, a track that ends with two young boys listening intently while a woman street preaches and engages both of the boys in prayer. 

Of course, every success story needs a triumphant arrival anthem, and that’s ‘Compton’, a bombastic Dr Dre track that seems out of place on this album, but then really, that’s the point of it.

Kendrick Lamar joins Dr Dre’s Aftermath label at an interesting time.  Big name artists and groups have come and gone from Dre’s label in the last 5 years, and the only real releases in that time have been the Eminem albums.

So the fact the Lamar album has surfaced show how much faith and confidence that the Doctor has in his new protégé, a similar enthusiasm that drove him to sign and produce the classic Eminem and 50 Cent records.We can only hope that Kendrick resists the commercial and societal temptations that have rendered his peers either irrelevant (50 Cent) or a cautionary tale (Eminem).