The Incredible Story of KENDRICK LAMAR

this video is brought to you by nebula classes a brand new feature on nebula and the only place where you can watch my brand new comprehensive class on how to use animation to take your videos to the next level where i share all of my best techniques and details on how i edit volksguide's videos to the highest quality i possibly can more on that later kendrick lamar duckworth born june 17th 1987 to a working-class family in compton california one of the most infamously poor and violent cities in the state kendrick lamar pulitzer prize winner grammy award winner the coal train of hip-hop millions of albums sold we know who he is he's the greatest rapper of our time but how did he get there as the story goes it was 1984 and kendrick lamar's parents kenny duckworth and paula olivier find themselves in a tough situation kenny was running with the gangster disciples on the south side of chicago but paula his girlfriend was afraid he was going to end up dead or in jail she gave him an ultimatum they could leave chicago and look for a better life or their relationship was over so they took a train to california bringing only two garbage bags full of clothes and 500 in cash it took a while for the couple to find a stable living situation in the meantime they worked fast food jobs slept in their car and sometimes stayed in motels or slept in the park if it was warm enough it wasn't until three years of staying afloat in california that they had finally saved enough to get an apartment but once they did their first son kendrick was born soon after kendrick lamar mostly describes his childhood in compton as stable inside but chaotic outside his parents placed a heavy emphasis on education in a safe home environment and kendrick has talked about how they always made sure there was food at home and christmas presents under the tree every year his mom says kendrick was always quiet and observant to the point where the family started calling him man-man as a reference to his maturity at such a young age but kendrick's childhood innocence didn't last long in a place like compton he talks about how his dad had a job at kfc but he eventually realized that his work schedule wasn't adding up kendrick had figured out that his dad was secretly working in the streets to make ends meet for the family his dad says i did what i had to do while kendrick tells positive stories of walking home from school with his mom riding bikes dancing in the living room while his parents listened to music with their friends compton was a dangerous place to be and his parents couldn't protect him from everything he tells the story of seeing a young man shot dead in front of his apartment building when he was five and how he and his dad accidentally got caught up in the rodney king riots when he was six watching people loot stores and light buildings on fire from the window of their car driving by there are many stories about kendrick's youth with the one constant being that all he did was write even in middle school he was writing non-stop every day his love of hip-hop ignited by the time he and his father saw tupac and dr dre filming a video outside of the compton flea market while kendrick got good grades in high school he was surrounded by what most people would consider a bad crowd like i mentioned earlier his life was stable inside but chaotic outside while kendrick never went to jail or joined a gang he found himself toeing the line of crime more than once whether it was getting shot at or taking a friend who had been shot to the hospital or driving around compton with guns in his car it got to a point where his parents kicked him out of their house for a while although kendrick was smart focused and motivated even someone as naturally gifted as him couldn't completely avoid the trouble he was surrounded by the pressure to give up his potential and lose himself and the noise of compton was ever present if it weren't for the people in kendrick's life pushing him in the right direction anything could have happened to him from the butterfly effect by marcus j moore by the time kendrick got to high school his career path was set he was going to be a rapper and nothing could make him veer off the course one day in particular matt jeezy and kendrick were walking home from centennial high school and the budding mc just couldn't stop rapping he started coming up with rhymes off the top of his head and he didn't stop until four or five blocks later when he and jeezy were close to their respective homes it was about 20 minutes worth of rapping gz recalls at that moment his friend knew that kendrick had what it took to be a star all he needed to do was stay away from the pitfalls of street life in the words of jeezy i was like damn kendrick if you just stay out of jail and stay alive you're gonna make it the words that literally came out of my mouth were don't go to jail and don't die sadly prison and death beset many of their friends later in the book moore writes at age 16 he started running with the wrong crowd partying and drinking alcohol it was really just kid [ __ ] the same thing teenagers had been doing for generations but given kendrick's neighborhood and family history his behavior foreshadowed a possible life of crime and gang affiliation kenny his dad wasn't having it he'd come too far to watch his son fall victim to the same habits kendrick says my father said i don't want you to be like me this conflict that kendrick experienced as a young man this moral war between the violent streets outside and the talent and potential and goodness inside this is the exact theme that kendrick would channel into his musical storytelling as he became an adult and started to pursue a career as a rapper this idea of the struggle to be a good person the duality of man and compton as a living place this is the story of section 80 and good kid mad city i think the funniest thing about kendrick's early music which a lot of people might not know is actually the fact that he got signed in 2004 shortly after dropping his first ever mixtape at the age of 16. this mixtape that got him signed at such a young age titled young neighbor in charge is really not that good the cover art is just a picture of kendrick with an email address and phone number for the label that produced it holdes yahoo.com of course the weird thing about this mixtape isn't actually the fact that kendrick was a pretty good rapper even when he was still in high school because look at him now why wouldn't he be the funny part to me is the way that he just calmly declares what separates me from the other local young rappers there is no separation because i'm not competing with them i'm competing with their favorite rappers and that prediction actually came true like anyone can say that but listening back to kendrick predict his future into some tinny mike in compton 18 years ago on top of an rnb beat it's mind-blowing anyway after some local success with his debut mixtape kendrick was signed as the first artist on top dog entertainment by anthony tiffeth record producer who had worked previously with rappers like the game in the late 90s and early 2000s and with his buzz steadily growing kendrick continued releasing mixtapes pretty much every year opening for more established artists and working with label mates like j-rock and absol but it wasn't until kendrick got a massive cosign from lil wayne back in 2009 that you could officially say he was on his way into the music industry just a year later in the fall of 2010 kendrick would release overly dedicated the project that most people would consider his big break and his first ever appearance on the billboard charts when the project peaked at 46 on the heatseekers chart overly dedicated is kendrick's best and final mixtape but if it were an album it would probably be his worst while kendrick's rapping was pretty good he hadn't yet developed the unique voices that make him the master of rapping he is today in the mixtape's production and engineering while pretty jazzy and dynamic wasn't anywhere near the level his music would eventually reach but i still really appreciate how he doesn't fall into the boring conscious rapper tactic of preaching about morality and simply rejecting the vice and sin around him but instead throughout overly dedicated he portrays the good and bad of life and compton in a much more artistic human way and in this way overly dedicated is pretty much a prototype of the cinematic storytelling kendrick would achieve on later albums just not quite as polished or interesting however it is definitely worth a listen especially since the project is available on streaming services section 80 was kendrick's next release and in my mind it's a lot like a more developed version of overly dedicated i think it's funny that if you go back and read old reviews and comments about this record a lot of people didn't like kendrick's voice when it first dropped people complained about his high pitch which i think is funny because it's not something you'll ever hear anymore instrumentals on section 80 are darker and more interesting the mixing sounds cleaner and of course kendrick storytelling is on a whole other level in my mind section 80 feels like a collection of campfire stories about compton it's not so much an analysis of social and political issues themselves but a meditation on the way different vices and pitfalls can affect people in a much more personal way you could connect all of these stories to political problems but kendrick is talking about it from less of a bird's-eye view and more of a first-person perspective not as an aloof disconnected commentator but as someone who is surrounded by the people and issues he's talking about growing up in compton and centering the story of the project around the different ways life and compton can be dark and light at the same time he has seen the darkest parts of society and that's what gives him the wisdom to explore these complex issues in his music without it sounding forced or corny section 80 is full of moving themes kendrick talks about drug addiction prostitution gang culture but none of these issues show up through a theoretical lens it's all very real and raw and approached through a gritty first-hand perspective my favorite song is the dark jazzy cush and corinthians in which kendrick explores the record's ultimate question he asks god if he can still be a good christian and be worthy of heaven despite his human nature the same human nature that allows for the darkness and sin discussed throughout the record section 80 is maybe kind of a rough masterpiece it's kind of raw scattered and unpolished and kendrick's later work approaches the same themes a little bit better in my opinion but i still think the way that kendrick takes these struggles of his generation and demographic and speaks to them in an analytical way without it being corny it's a very unique artistic ability and even though it was his debut album it put him miles ahead of his peers at the time and firmly on a track to stardom if section 80 was a manifesto about life in compton chronicling the atmosphere of the city and the spirit of the people living there good kid mad city is an autobiography look at the album cover a childhood photo of kendrick with a baby bottle a 40 ounce and an uncle flashing a gang sign in the words of kendrick that photo says so much about my life and about how i was raised in compton and the things i've seen just through those innocent eyes you don't see any other eyes but you see my eyes are innocent trying to figure out what's going on and that is the story of the album itself it's a story of growth on two levels on one hand it's full of tales from kendrick's youth painting a picture of how life and compton shaped him and made him who he is during his teenage years while at the same time connecting life experiences to more universal themes in a way that gives the record a timeless literary quality and in my opinion makes it one of the best albums of all time the brilliancy of good kid mad city in my opinion is the fact that despite telling the story of an impoverished black kid growing up in compton a small city in los angeles county there's a universality to kendrick's storytelling that makes the album not just a story of his youth but it speaks to youth as a whole in the process of maturation that we all go through before becoming adults throughout the course of the record kendrick illustrates this process of growing up and maturing in the beginning of the record he's a distracted kid who takes a lot of risks and runs with the wrong crowd he chases women gets drunk does drugs and burglarizes homes with his friends his character is on a path towards self-destruction but the story of the record doesn't come to a head until the end of swimming pools when one of kendrick's friends dave is killed and kendrick comes to the abrupt and sobering realization that he must change his ways or face severe consequences the next song in the record sing about me i'm dying of thirst is one of my favorite songs of all time it's 12 minutes long but i can listen to it over and over without getting bored kendrick explores the ways in which his rough upbringing made him obsessed with death how his constant exposure to violence abuse and drugs at a young age gave him a dark cynical outlook on life my favorite lines are in the third verse where he raps cursing the life of 20 generations after her soul exactly what had happened if i didn't continue rapping he's comparing poverty to a curse referencing the idea that a lack of education and financial stability can influence one's offspring for generations creating a cycle of destitution to me that's what good kid mad city is all about that's what makes it one of the best albums i've ever heard by examining the cycle of poverty he was born into looking at himself and his actions with clarity he can not only change his cycle but inspire others to do the same as well towards the end of the 12-minute song he raps what are we doing who are we fooling hell is hot fire is proven to burn for eternity return of the student that never learned how to live righteous but how to shoot it referencing the cycles of violence that perpetuate themselves in impoverished communities at the end of the song the outro depicts a neighbor played by the legendary poet maya angelou scolding kendrick and his friends for carrying guns and looking for revenge against the men that killed their friend dave she tells them that they are dying of thirst and must be saved by god in order to avoid further destruction before leading them through a prayer good kid mad city is one of my favorite stories of all time not just one of my favorite albums or one of my favorite records but one of my favorite stories kendrick's ability to make something so personal to his life experience that applies to the lives of so many people and to have it be so engaging at the same time there is nothing else like it even though it's a concept album with deep structured narrative themes every song stands on its own but together for me it stands as one of the best stories i've ever heard in my life personally it's my favorite coming of age story of all time and i don't think i'm alone in that opinion good kid mad city was nominated for album of the year at the 2014 grammys it was named as one of the greatest albums of all time by rolling stone magazine and was eventually certified three times platinum and at this point in kendrick's career he had reached a point where people were starting to consider him one of the greatest rappers alive after just two albums but his follow-up to pimp a butterfly couldn't have been more different while good kid mad city is considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time or one of the greatest hip-hop albums of the 2010s or one of the greatest west coast hip-hop albums the pimp butterfly is often considered one of the best albums ever made this is not a day in the life of a curious young man compton this is a story told through metaphors that allude to events and ideas in a cerebral psychedelic way that requires deep analysis if good kid mad city's story is a tarantino movie to pimp a butterfly is a james joyce novel tapimpa butterfly deals with the transformation of thoughts and beliefs that kendrick experienced after finding success with his music and leaving compton for the first time while he might be on top of the world with his music and fame he's encountered yet more problems and tells this story with a broader more political and analytical tone there are few events that supposedly inspired the making of this record from kendrick visiting nelson mandela's jail cell in south africa in 2014 to his outrage at the killings of unarmed black men that happened from 2013 to 2014 and led to the rise of the black lives matter movement he said it directly in interviews from this time period he isn't speaking for the community he is the community kendrick felt that he easily could have been trayvon martin or michael brown if he wasn't kendrick lamar and he needed to channel that feeling into the album he addresses violence power self-loathing trauma and politics and the way that all of those ideas connect to each other at the same time this album incorporates all of the different forms of black music in america the pimple butterfly incorporates the sounds of jazz soul and funk into modern hip-hop in a way that feels absolutely kaleidoscopic and ultimately tapimpa butterfly is hard to talk about not because of the heavy themes and touchy topics but because it's so deep it's the same length as a feature film it's full of obscure samples references and nuanced writing that you could literally write a book about i mean there are books about it in college classes too and he really explores some truly depressing dark topics in this album the end result of all these thematic and musical ingredients is a psychedelic dream-like album that many people consider one of the best records ever made the beautiful instrumentals were conjured up by some of the greatest instrumentalists alive today and the deep writing is full of obscure references and both profoundly political observations and unfettered personal details so just three albums in and kendrick has already made one of the best albums of all time he's already revered as one of the sharpest most talented cultural commentators in america but i think the problem he was faced with now was that of accessibility yeah tepima butterfly went platinum and debuted at number one and was nominated for seven grammy awards but it wasn't all that accessible and despite its meaning there were scores of people who would never experience that meaning because they aren't going to invest the time it takes to dive into the album and appreciate it on its own terms i mean and i think that's the core purpose of damn kendrick's fourth album to continue exploring the themes of te pimpa butterfly in a way that has the potential to reach an even bigger audience than ever before if kendrick's goal with dam was to make himself absolutely unavoidable to get so big that his concepts and message would be heard by exponentially more people than ever before he succeeded damn ended up one of the most commercial albums of the 2010s it was the first ever non-jazz or classical work to win a pulitzer prize for music and it was the best-selling album of 2017 where tapimba butterfly was full of anachronistic musical inspirations coming from the history of jazz and soul dam was more inspired by the sound of pop trap and contemporary r b and when it came out it was far more polarizing than anything kendrick had made before to put it simply many people thought damn was basic after the overwhelming density of sounds and ideas on tapimba butterfly there were a large number of critics and fans that felt as if kendrick was selling out when he dropped damn but truthfully and i've mentioned this before i feel as if no matter what direction kendrick goes in musically he's never traded a more accessible sound for less meaningful ideas one of the strongest ideas on dam is faith and the way that kendrick struggles with his religious beliefs as a result of the increasingly stressful conditions around him once again i would say damn comes from a perspective of speaking for his culture and his people but he isn't an evangelical leader preaching prosperity to the masses he's here to shed light on the dark thoughts and feelings that a lot of people have without promising that things are magically going to improve overnight if you just pray in fact one of the biggest ideas that appears throughout dam is the idea that faith may not actually be sufficient to sustain us that we're losing our moral compass while hanging on to religion and ultimately not fully interacting with either in the words of rodney carmichael for npr the old testament is full of prophets trying their damnedest to save the world more often than not their first obstacle they overcome is self self-doubt self-loathing even their personal aversion to self-sacrifice moses the deliverer was a murderer with a speech impediment noah the ark builder was a documented drunk elijah the resurrector was straight up suicidal all of them were broken vessels but vessels for their god nonetheless then there was jeremiah he suffered depression so badly likely from carrying the weight of the world and his shoulders that students of the bible refer to him as the weeping prophet later in the article rodney carmichael says our image of prophets today is warped by history consider the realities they lived in the messages they espoused in ancient times they did not bring hope and redemption they preached apocalyptic visions full of fire and brimstone meant to turn people away from ungodliness they did not come to praise our worship but to destroy and rebuild with a sense of duty that compelled him to speak truth to power they faced frequent persecution imprisonment and even death prophets rarely won popularity contests at least not without being beheaded for it later so in my opinion the themes of damn really shine when you compare the record's chief concern with the wrath of god and the consequences of sin with the absolute lack of such themes anywhere else in music today kendrick addresses widespread political issues his country's inner demons so to speak while at the same time addressing his own his chief concerns are the eternal tug of wickedness and weakness on our souls kendrick depicts this conflict between wickedness and weakness in his own heart and connects that battle to the increasingly disconnected and polarized society where politics itself has become a battlefield dam was a pretty controversial album but it was also by far kendrick's most commercially successful record with a world tour that grossed 62 million dollars and lasted over a year with billions of views on music videos and even more billions of streams to put it briefly damn was undeniably a massive success and while a few people thought it was shallow or boring compared to the depth and detail of kendrick's previous work in my mind it's just as brilliant as anything else he's ever made it just sounds more accessible kendrick's storytelling just keeps getting better and better no matter what sound he's going for making three of the most successful and beloved hip-hop albums ever back to back is a monumental achievement but it also creates pressure so while i don't think anyone expected kendrick to disappear for five years it isn't that much of a surprise to me that he would take time away from the public eye to plan his next move but it also only makes sense the last thing kendrick did before his hiatus after the billions of streams and skrillex remixes was the soundtrack album for a marvel movie and the black panther soundtrack despite being one of the better movie albums i've heard and spawning a bunch of major hit songs is still a movie album and if you were to skip any kendrick affiliated project this would be the one but i do think pray for me with the weekend is a good example of just how great a writer kendrick is even though it's a much more poppy song kendrick still finds a way to address the heavy topics he does in his own music he says i fight the world i fight you i fight myself i fight god just tell me how many burdens left i fight pain in hurricanes today i wept kendrick didn't announce his disappearance or anything he just stopped making music unannounced and over time while kendrick was gone from the public eye the social issues he talked about on his albums only became more and more apparent to the general public kendrick's music had become so topical and relevant that he was basically being hailed as a larger than life figure a prophet a poet even a philosopher i remember in the summer of 2020 when people were marching in the street against police brutality in the wake of george floyd's murder kendrick's music was being played off bluetooth speakers and the streets every single day and there was this expectation that after everything he had said in his music after all of his political statements and ideological concepts he would come back and say something to make sense of the violence and panic but he didn't the only thing i remember seeing was some unconfirmed photos of kendrick in a mask at a protest compton but he didn't say anything himself even though he was basically the unofficial muse of the black lives matter movement so five years go by since kendrick's last album and people started to get pretty impatient we knew he wasn't gone forever he had made an understated announcement of a new venture back in 2020 called pg lang a multilingual artist friendly service company focused on music film television books and podcasts and a year later in the summer of 2021 he announced that his next album would be his last with tde the label he had been signed to since he was 16 years old but he didn't actually say when that album would be coming he wrote a quick note to his audience saying thank you for keeping me in your thoughts i prayed for you all and i'll see you soon enough after that note there was nothing about an album even though he hopped on his cousin baby keem's album for a few verses including the extremely popular family ties where he pulled off one of my favorite verses in all of 2021 fast forward to 2022 and once again people are asking where the hell is kendrick lamar and there would be no answer until a third of the way through the year when he lit twitter on fire by replying to a tweet jokingly saying kendrick lamar has officially retired with a link to a note that said for immediate release mr morale and the big steppers 5 13 22 appreciate your patience it was a frenzy the most anticipated album of the last five years an album that some people thought was never coming out finally it was right around the corner but at this point the only thought in my mind was you know what some people are going to hate it no matter what it sounds like or how good it is some people just won't like it unfortunately i ended up being right mr morale and the big steppers was not a flop but it wasn't what people expected i mean in my mind this album is a masterpiece it plays out like a therapy session where kendrick explores the most vulnerable topics and stories he's ever touched on with his music he talks about his family his kids and wife his mother father uncles and aunts he talks about his role as a protector and the people that protected him when he was younger he talks about salvation and the journey towards forgiveness and the acceptance of trauma and even opens up about some of the trauma he went through as a younger person he talks about his own duality reckoning with his capability to be both good and evil at the same time the main theme of the album isn't a new one for kendrick he talks about the generational curse and the way the actions of our ancestors can follow us through our own lives and create a perpetual cycle of suffering just because something doesn't have as much pop appeal doesn't mean it isn't meaningful in fact i think mr morale is his deepest album yet over the course of the record kendrick seeks to free himself from the mental prisons and burdens put in place by the trauma he's experienced and by the end after some truly dark songs and ethereal production he reaches a beautiful conclusion he says i choose me i'm sorry referring to the idea that he could no longer be a cultural savior without first addressing his own family problems and inner struggles mr morale is a singularly beautiful deeply self-aware album with some of the best songwriting i've ever heard and in my opinion it's a top album from kendrick kendrick lamar is a true artist an artist who says true things maybe that sounds simple but we live in a world where truth is far from encouraged in the art economy you can fake your backstory you can fake your culture and fake your personality and you can be perfectly successful with that made-up persona but you can only go so far with that in order to get where kendrick is today and make the music he's made it takes a level of self-awareness and introspection that most people never reach and at the same time he creates deep worlds full of concepts and characters and it makes every single one of his albums a masterpiece in its own unique way whether it's the gritty darkness and character-based storytelling of section 80 or the cinematic narrative of a teenager navigating the dangers and temptations of life in compton in good kid mad city or the unprecedented musical depth and poetic format of te pimpa butterfly or the massive commercial impact and themes of personal struggle on dam or the emotionally devastating depth of mr morel kendrick has created a world of music just as imaginative just as meaningful and timeless as any other great work of storytelling to me he's one of the greatest artists of all time let alone in music and his dedication to his craft is unrivaled kendrick lamar's greatest strength is not just how he can show us his truth but how his truth applies to everyone who hears it no one else comes close this has been volksgeist thank you for watching and speaking of quality and dedication to your craft let's talk about nebula classes a brand new part of nebula that we just launched full of deep informative classes from some of the best creators on the internet i'm extremely proud of my first class it's a comprehensive deep dive into my techniques for animations in my class i talk about all of my editing secrets and my creative process for coming up with good visual storytelling concepts and i think it's the perfect resource if you're looking to increase production 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Channel: Volksgeist

Views: 635,142

Keywords: Kendrick Lamar, Video essay, volksgeist

Id: KT7mM2YN6Do

Length: 26min 1sec (1561 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 07 2022