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).
