Walk with me.
The year is 2002 and you’re 15 years old on a sunny Saturday. You and your 2 best friends leave your house to head to the park to hoop and talk to girls. Before you left the house you scanned your outfit for any colors that......could draw attention.
All white pro club, black hoop shorts and white Jordan 11’s. Safe.
A sharp honking sound fills the air. The origin of the racket leads you to a short, happy Mexican man screaming “Elote!!!”. You give him $6 so you and the homies can have freshly dressed “street corn” and cherry Raspados. The faint sound of the horn dissipates as you round the corner. Lueders Park is one crosswalk away. Just before you cross the street, a blacked out 5.0 Mustang pulls up. The tinted window rolls down and a man no older than 19 years old interrogates you.
“Aye! You know where y’all at? Where y’all from!?” The stranger says in a menacing tone from the passenger side.
You’ve rehearsed the following response with your big cousin; however, rehearsals aren’t performances.
“We don’t bang” You respond nervously while feigning confidence. A bead of sweat runs down the right side of your face as you wait for the stranger’s approval. The stranger scans your outfit for any infraction of the code.
He steps out of the car, a bright red bandana hanging out of his back right pocket. The blood rushes to your head so fast you can hear your heartbeat. The stranger looks down at your shoes
“OH NO!” you think but don’t say. You wore white and black but made one miscalculation. The Jumpman. The Jumpman on the Jordans is blue. Tiny. But still very much so blue.
“What you doing in my neighborhood with all that ‘FLU’ on!? I need those!” The stranger says joyously, making the interaction even more terrifying.
You protest. Your slight defiance is met with seeing a pistol on the stranger’s waist struggling to be held up by his belt. You and your friends run back to your house as quick as you can, 3 friends but only 2 pairs of shoes. Your socks are no match for the gravel and broken beer bottles the alley gifted you. It had a nil effect on you on your journey home though.
Love may give you butterflies, but fear will give you wings.
Welcome to Compton.
Although that story is fictional the sentiments and thematic elements are as real as gravity.
In fact, it was inspired by a multitude of songs by one of my favorite artists and subject for this expose: Kendrick Lamar.
Kendrick has one of the most unique perspectives and impacts in rap history.
There is no shortage of rappers from the west coast who use music to vent their violent thoughts while waxing poetic about street culture, gangbanging and all the benefits and liabilities of a life on the fringe of society.
But a mainstream rapper who talks about a culture he loves unconditionally while being victimized by a subsection of it?
Only one. Kendrick Lamar.
We need to travel back to 2015 to really get into the mind of K-dot.
Coming off the immense success of his first mainstream album “good Kid, m.A.A.d City”, Kendrick decided to switch directions.
His first album was an atmospheric masterpiece of storytelling, amazing production, quotable bars and straight up hits. Where do you go from there?
Surely, you’d try to make the same album over again with a new title and new songs to maintain the same level of success and status, right?
Nope. He decides to create an allegory disguised as an album.
“To Pimp a Butterfly” was created. Rappers make great second albums all the time. Why is Kendrick’s different?
Kendrick is the only rapper to ever reach legendary status amongst the backpackers and the casuals while also showing the dichotomy unique to the black boys who couldn’t quite find a lane for themselves.
What do you do when your neighborhood speaks with examples of hopelessness instead of words of affirmation?
If you’re a rapper, you talk about it with 808’s in the background.
In rap you alchemize your pain.
Sometimes the gold you create sounds a lot like glorifying trauma and death.
Kendrick’s gold glorified nothing. Instead, he opened the door to one of the oldest philosophical troupes in art. Something rap has never seen before: The Hero’s Journey.
In “TPAB” Kendrick doesn’t just rap. He battles “Lucy” (the devil/temptation/himself) over jazzy production. Lucy is most persuasive on the way up the mountain. Lucy is quiet at the bottom.
To completely understand this, we will need help from other stories starting with Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”.
The observation Campbell made is so painfully obvious once you see it. Sort of like buying a car and the following week noticing just how many other people have the same one. The observation was that all main characters in feats of literary excellence, both fictional and historic, share the same path: Separation, Initiation and Return.
First the main character is faced with an existential threat and is forced out of their comfort zone. (Separation)
Jesus traveled all over the Middle East teaching as a boy. The Buddha left his palace in all its opulence to find enlightenment. T’challa(Black Panther) literally died voluntarily to return with superpowers.
Kendrick escaped Compton.
Separation is obvious. The hard part is Initiation. This is where our hero is faced with trials. Jesus was in the wilderness when the devil offered him sovereignty over all who walked the earth. The Buddha sat down to meditate while Mara (a demon) came with a full army to temp him with power, sex and illusions. T’challa got his ass kicked by Kilmonger and thrown off a waterfall.
This is where we found Kendrick prior to releasing TPAB. Struggling with his success. The Culture was being ravaged by violence. The news reporting police using excessive force against unarmed black men daily. Rap music was becoming increasingly dumber by the track.
Kendrick saw success and thought he got everything he wanted. He made enough to take care of his family and had critical acclaim, but The Culture was starving. The Culture needed a mirror and a window simultaneously. Were we ready to look though?
What makes TPAB so unique?
There are a multitude of rappers who have crafted verses filled with the anxiety and frustration of being wrongly accused of a crime and having their rights violated by a misguided police officer.
There have also been rappers who see the calamity of the self-imposed harm The Culture finds itself committing daily. The plague of learned helplessness passing from one generation to the next like heirlooms.
TPAB had both. Two of the greatest songs on the album show the duality of Kendricks mind and The Culture at large.
“Alright” had a motivational tone intertwined with painful subject matters of depression, temptation, anger and being victimized by outside forces. “Alright” is what would happen if Maya Angelou was an 80’s baby who grew up on cartoons, cereal and NWA.
“I'm at the preacher's door
My knees gettin' weak and my gun might blow
But we gon' be alright”
Still, we rise.
“Blacker the Berry” showed the other side of the coin. Instead of the motivating tone being on the back end of the song, it’s in the front. It starts off with aggressive affirmations of black pride but something in the song feels unsettling. Then comes the end of the third verse.
“So don't matter how much I say I like to preach with the Panthers
Or tell Georgia State, Marcus Garvey got all the answers"
Or try to celebrate February like it's my B-Day
Or eat watermelon, chicken, and Kool-Aid on weekdays
Or jump high enough to get Michael Jordan endorsements
Or watch BET 'cause urban support is important
So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street
When gang banging make me kill a n**** blacker than me?
Hypocrite!”
No one argued. No one challenged him. K-dot was right.
Great art makes you ask questions. Mine was simple but not easy. Does one only love something if it’s beyond reproach?
No.
When you truly love something you are willing to correct it for its own betterment.
The Initiation was complete.
Struggling with himself while making art that anyone could relate to if they just looked deep enough was the hill Kendrick climbed.
Now for the final part of the journey: The Return.
Jesus emerged from the wilderness famished but alive with the perspective needed to create the “Sermon on the Mount”. Buddha defeated all suffering and reached enlightenment by remaining still amidst the onslaught of human desires. The Black Panther chastised his ancestors for allowing unnecessary suffering to happen under their watch and reclaimed his throne to thwart a world war.
Kendrick has had a phenomenal career with all the accolades, respect, and wealth that comes with it. But true kings don’t rest on their laurels.
Kendrick has completely changed Comtpon for the better by investing in it. Some philanthropic endeavors are only financial. Kendrick invested something far more valuable than money.
Kendrick invested in schools, houses, youth engagement, inspiration, motivation and changing what it means to be from Compton. It’s not the gangbang capital. It’s a city where the seeds of the future can one day bloom into excellence.
He invested in the identity of Compton.
I say all of this for a reason. Nothing you do is small. We can all be heroes. You may not win a grammy. You may not earn millions.
That’s not the point.
A hero doesn’t just win so others can watch them win.
A hero is someone who voluntarily picks up the heaviest thing in their lives and walks with it.
A hero is someone who can look at themselves and struggle all the way towards their goal.
A hero is willing to fight for something bigger than themselves.
Pain is inevitable. So is loss. But Kendrick didn’t leave us advice on TPAB. Just encouragement.
“WE GON BE ALRIGHT!!!!”
🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡
My brother this was so refreshing to read. I'm a fan of writing, of rap, and of Kendrick—and you combined all of these in such a succinct and engaging essay. Keep sharing your perspective man. I think this space we are operating in—as writers—is need of it.
"Love may give you butterflies, but fear will give you wings." 🤌🏾